Armada Music intends to spend some $500 million on dance catalogs via BEAT in the coming years. Photo Credit: Redd F
Armin van Buuren-founded dance label Armada Music has partnered with Pinnacle Financial Partners to launch BEAT (short for “Best Ever Acquired Tracks”), which higher-ups are billing as “the first-ever dance music investment company.”
Amsterdam-headquartered Armada, which arrived on the scene two decades ago and is said to boast a more than 40,000-track catalog, emailed DMN about its foray into song-rights investments today. Notwithstanding the state of the economy, BEAT is poised to drop $100 million on recorded and publishing IP alike “in its first two years,” execs communicated.
Worth noting is that Cutting Edge Media Music (CEMM) in February announced that it had raised the same amount from backers including Nashville-based Pinnacle. (Then, CEMM one month back bought the catalog of First Score Music.) More recently, it emerged that Position Music had obtained a new credit facility from Pinnacle.
Back to the acquisition objectives of BEAT, which is according to Armada looking “to grow its investment to at least $500 million in coming years,” the business has kicked things off by purchasing techno vet Kevin Saunderson’s masters from his KMS Records label. Additionally, BEAT has scooped up the publishing and recorded catalogs of 33-year-old ARTY (real name Artem Stolyarov).
Addressing his long-term vision for BEAT in a statement, Armada Music co-founder and CEO Maykel Piron, whose company is said to have been acquiring song rights for some time now, emphasized that he’s “super excited” about the IP-centered buildout.
“It’s a privilege to be working with the tracks that sparked my passion for dance music at an early age,” relayed the former Warner Music Benelux A&R exec Piron. “That passion is still there, and it’s incredibly rewarding to bolster the legacy of major dance hits such as Joe Smooth’s ‘Promised Land’, of which we already acquired the exploitation rights years ago.
“It adds a new dimension to the work we’re doing with Armada Music, and we’re super excited to bring in more incredible labels, artists and songs to boost and complement our current catalog of 40.000 tracks,” he finished.
Last month, Beatport launched a Web3 hub for electronic music, and Warner Records debuted a flagship EDM label called Major Recordings. On the catalog side, the past four or so weeks have delivered deals between Mannie Fresh and Reservoir, Primary Wave and Russ Ballard as well as Sarah McLachlan, and AMR Songs and John Sebastian, to name a few.