Michael Jackson vs Paul McCartney
(Another Dark Side of the King of Pop
and the breaking of a great friendship)
"38 years ago they dominated the Christmas charts together, but their relationship turned into a historic feud after Jackson bought the Beatles catalog and became the owner of the songs his friend had written."
On December 10, 1983, Say Say Say, a duet of Paul McCartney (Liverpool, 1942) and Michael Jackson (Indiana, 1958-California, 2009), reached number one on the sales charts in the United States and spent six weeks in That position. It thus became the Christmas song of that year. Say say say was one of the duets between McCartney and Jackson and included in Pipes of peace, the exbeatle's fifth solo album (which also included another song with Jackson, The man). The previous duet, The girl is mine, had been released a year earlier and, although we may have forgotten it today, it was the first single from the immense Thriller, the best-selling album in history. Normal to have forgotten: it was the worst song in that pristine collection.
Neither song will go down in history for standing out among the very powerful catalogs of both, but for bringing together two of the greatest pop figures of the 20th century: a beatle and the king of pop. A collaboration had already taken place before: Girlfriend, belonging to Off the wall (which is considered the first album of the adult Michael Jackson and now free from the shadow of the Jackson 5) had been written by Paul McCartney. But it was during the Thriller sessions that Michael called Paul and said, as the artist recalled in his Moonwalker memoirs: "Let's meet and write some songs."
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Say say say was co-written by Paul, a man who could play all the instruments in the studio and do everything right, and I, a boy who couldn't. But we still work as equals and enjoy it, ”wrote Jackson. The curious music video for the song, by the way, features the two artists as professional con artists and was recorded on a ranch that Jackson fell in love with. He would end up buying it five years later and turning it into Neverland, the opulent complex in which he lived until shortly before his death in 2009. Also in that video clip there was an image of both counting bills and dollar bills that would end up being prophetic.
Michael speaks little more about Paul in his memoirs, which were published in 1988. He literally dedicates two paragraphs to one of the great clashes of the music industry, in which he says: “Over time I ended up buying the ATV catalog, which included many of Lennon and McCartney songs. But what people don't know is that it was Paul himself who introduced me to the world of music rights. I was at Paul and Linda's house in the country when Paul told me about his own involvement in the world of music rights. " And nothing more. Michael was good at many things, but facing his own problems was not one of them.
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For complex legal reasons, a mixture of youth ignorance and purchases and some companies that engulf others, McCartney had lost his part of Northern Songs, the music publisher that he had formed with John Lennon in the sixties to manage the rights of his songs. Instead, he used his enormous fortune to acquire the rights to the songs of others, for example Buddy Holly. And during the recording sessions with Michael Jackson he sang to the young man the virtues of investing in the publishing world of music.
"I'm going to buy your songs," Jackson told McCartney as he recalled in a television interview. "Yes, of course!", Replied the beatle, laughing.
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The laughter soon froze. In 1985, just three years later, and becoming an immensely wealthy man after the worldwide success of Thriller (the best-selling album in history), Jackson bought the ATV Music catalog, which in turn had bought the Northern Songs catalog in 1969. In the catalog there were 4,000 songs, including some by Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones or Elvis Presley, but its main course was 251 songs by the Beatles. Jackson paid 47 million dollars, at that time half his fortune and among the songs whose rights he became the owner were hymns such as Help, Yesterday, All you need is love or Hey Jude.
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If Jackson became so immensely wealthy during his career, it was thanks to the publishing business. Obtaining rights to songs that he had not composed to make a profit from their exploitation was something that other artists did already. Every time a song from that catalog was covered, played live or used in any medium, he charged a fee.
Paul McCartney was pissed off. A lot of. Above all, because Michael had overtaken him on the right: buying that catalog and feeling that he was recovering what was his was one of the dreams of his life and he had already tried it in 1981, only four years before, offering 20 million dollars. It was a joint project: he had offered to shell out ten million and had asked Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, to put up another ten. But Yoko refused and the deal fell apart.
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In 1995, mired in a major financial crisis, Jackson sold half of the ATV catalog to Sony for about $ 100 million.
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According to the biography that J. Randy Tarraborelli wrote about Michael Jackson, Magic and Madness, the artist called Paul as soon as the deal was closed in London (he was not even present: his lawyer John Branca took care of everything ). And Paul hung up the phone. The friendship between two legends ended in an international call.
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Did all this mean that Paul was going to stop seeing a penny for the songs that he himself had composed? Absolutely. But under this arrangement, the profits from the Beatles songs in the catalog that now belonged to Michael were split 50% for its composers (McCartney and Lennon's heirs, for example) and another 50% for the publisher. I mean, Michael Jackson.
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Jackson not only angered Beatles fans and McCartney himself for keeping his catalog but because the business decisions he began to make about it to monetize it were received as an affront to his legacy. For example, giving up one of the group's most political songs, Revolution (1968), from the White Album, for a Nike campaign in 1987. The group itself denounced this decision in court. "The Beatles did not create this song to be used in commercials," the band's attorney said, according to the Los Angeles Times. "If they had wanted to make money with advertising campaigns, they could have done it in the last 25 years," added the lawyer. Michael didn't back down. Quite the contrary: the next step was to allow All you need is love, one of the mainstays of the Liverpool discography, to be used in a Panasonic ad.
Paul's fury was public. "McCartney accuses Michael Jackson of having violated his work, which he made public on January 3, 1990"
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In addition, Michael got an unexpected ally: Yoko Ono, who declared that she was happy with Michael managing the Beatles' catalog editorially and it was better for him to have it than for herself or Paul, which would only create friction between the Beatles themselves and Lennon's heirs.
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What happened after? In 1995, mired in a major financial crisis (and with his public image irreparably damaged after the first allegations of child abuse), Jackson sold half of the ATV catalog to Sony for about $ 100 million. The Sony / ATV editorial catalog became the most important in the world and was valued, according to media such as The New York Times, at a billion dollars.
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In 2009, after the death of the author of Thriller, some media theorized that, in an act of justice, Jackson's will had given McCartney the rights to his own songs. This was not the case, and McCartney stated that he did not expect it either. In 2016, seven years after the artist's death, Sony bought 50% of the catalog from Michael's heirs in exchange for $ 750 million. At that time, the Sony / ATV corporation became the owner of those songs and their catalog, the most valuable in the world.
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Jackson came up with an unexpected ally: Yoko Ono, who stated that she was happy that Michael managed the Beatles' catalog editorially and it was better that she had him than she or Paul had it, which would only create friction between the The Beatles themselves and Lennon's heirs.
Paul McCartney has continued his own fight all these years and continued to claim control of the Beatles' rights from Sony, alluding to a clause in the United States Intellectual Property Law that says that an artist whose work has been sold to a third party can claim it 56 years after its creation. In 2017, McCartney and Sony / ATV reached a confidential agreement for the rights to revert to the exbeatle as of October 2018.
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McCartney, despite publicly expressing his disagreement with the advertising use of Beatles songs, always maintained a very British calm on this matter in public. "I can't blame him, those songs were on the market," he said in 1989, while the entire industry knew he was really furious. Following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, McCartney reminded the artist on good terms: "I felt privileged to have been able to have fun and work with Michael. He was an immensely talented little man with a gentle soul. His music will be remembered forever. and my memories with him will be happy. "
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Agreement
Under this arrangement, the profits from the Beatles songs in the catalog that now belonged to Michael were split 50% for its composers (McCartney and Lennon's heirs, for example) and 50% for the publisher. I mean, Michael Jackson
Paul MCCARTNEY
Following Jackson's death on June 25, 2009, McCartney recalled the artist on good terms: "I felt privileged to have been able to have fun and work with Michael.
He was an immensely talented little man with a gentle soul. His music will be remembered forever and my memories with him will be happy. "