“Abbey Road, the London recording studios immortalised by the Beatles album of the same name, has been put on the market by EMI as the music group looks to extricate itself from the debt burden of Terra Firma’s 2007 leveraged buy-out,” Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson reports for The Financial Times.
“EMI would not comment but five people familiar with the situation told the Financial Times it had been courting bidders for the property in St John’s Wood. A sale could raise tens of millions of pounds,” Edgecliffe-Johnson reports. “It was not immediately clear whether EMI would sell the Abbey Road brand name along with the property, but one media lawyer said: ‘The brand is worth more than the building… anybody who wants the studios will want the brand.'”
Edgecliffe-Johnson reports, “EMI bought the house at number 3 Abbey Road for £100,000 in 1929 and transformed it into the world’s first custom-built recording studios.”
“The Beatles put the studios on the map, using it for 90 per cent of their recordings between 1962 and 1969 and naming their final album Abbey Road. EMI used the studios for last year’s release of remastered Beatles albums,” Edgecliffe-Johnson reports. “Pink Floyd recorded Dark Side of the Moon at the studios, which have also been used by Radiohead, the Manic Street Preachers, Travis and Blur.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Perhaps if they had worked harder to bring The Beatles to iTunes Store in a timely manner, EMI wouldn’t have been forced into trying to unload Abbey Road today.
Too late! I just bought it.
Damn! I was just reaching for my wallet…
Apple should buy it and put a store on the property….
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nothing is forever. the record companies could have created a different format instead of cds. but they never did…
As The Rutles once sang “All you need is cash…”
Does George Martin come with it?
Bargain bin
Interesting news… but other than the childish MDN take, I’m trying to figure out how this constitutes Mac news???
Ironically, Glenn Miller’s last recording session was also at Abbey Road.
Sir Paul should buy it and turn it into a Beatles museum.
Who are the Beatles?
Macdailynews word: ironically enough: place, as in the Beatles Song “There’s a Place” or some such.
This is Mac News why?
@Macanatic: Well said. I’m surprised we didn’t hear any of the usual blather about music cartels and “albums as artificial construct.”
FTA: “However, the studios have faced cheaper competition from recording facilities in other countries, and technological advances allowing artists to record using only a laptop computer have made it harder for labels to justify owning expensive recording infrastructure.”
Which underlines precisely what so much music is lacking nowadays: top-notch engineering and a fabulous acoustic space like Abbey Road Studio Two; no DAW or plugin has yet to replicate those qualities.
Well…it’s NOT Apple or Mac news clearly (but since when has that mattered on this site?)
But rather obviously the site should be purchased, retrofitted and turned into a tourist attraction, a recording studio museum if you will for fans of the Beatles, Pink Floyd and many others. It would make money for a long time to come.
EMI needs a lot of cash soon. Hence this development.
Ray beat me to it but definately would be a great Apple Store or UK HQ location for what it would represents but also as a small stab in the eye to McCartny and EMI.
EMI didn’t exist in 1929, so I imagine it was bought by HMV (The Gramophone Co) to replace their studios in Hayes. Future partners Columbia had studios in Petty France at that time; and Parlophone’s were in an old church building in St Johns Wood. They all combined forces in 1931 to avoid going bust, like most of the other record labels did around that time! Poor old Edison-Bell, Piccadiily, Broadcast, Sterno, Dominion, World Echo, Panachord and even British Brunswick went bust.
Not Apple news, but glad I saw this. Love the Beatles. Got into the reissues. The Beatles’ camp (Apple Corp. not Apple) missed an opportunity not going onto iTunes. It doesn’t really matter to Apple at this point.
An Apple store in its place would be interesting irony. Record stores have closed, now the old guard recording studios.
Museum. Please.
To my tastes, the fact that The Floyd ™ recorded there is more important than the Rutles…
“..An Apple store in its place would be interesting irony..”
Abbey Road is out in a residential area (St John’s Wood) miles from central London. Next to no-one would trek out there to an Apple Store. That’s be daft. ..Like putting an Apple Store out at Uluru/Ayers Rock, just in case some tourists turned up. Take a look on Google Maps..
The absence of The Beatles music catalog from the iTune Store is one of the most baffling business decisions ever. Somebody over there has got a screw loose, or worse.
Ooooh, Ayers Rock, that’d be a mecca of an Apple Store. Pilgrimages galore! That’d be like putting a store at Stonehenge.
I think Steve might buy Abbey Road studios.
Ayers Rock would be cool, but Steve would want to chip it down to a cube.
I got no major beef against EMI. They stuck by Apple the most, especially as a lone support for a bit during the difficult period when Apple needed credible labels for the iTunes plus model. EMI’s stance helped force the others to ditch DRM and Amazon exclusivity to a decent degree.
They need to sell it to get out of a mountain of debt, not because nobody’s using it. It’s still an active world-class recording studio, the likes of which will always have their place, but operating one is kind of a break-even proposition. It’s dead weight to them.