Sony Music just acquired the chart-topping Savage Garden catalogue
After signing a distribution agreement with Universal Music in 2015, manager and music mogul John Woodruff has now sold the entire multi-platinum Savage Garden catalogue to Sony Music, TMN can reveal.
The acquisition of masters covers their iconic and record-breaking self-titled and Affirmation albums, including hits ‘Truly Madly Deeply,’ ‘To The Moon and Back’, ‘I Knew I Loved You’ and ‘I Want You’.
The worldwide deal also covers the first two solo albums by Darren Hayes.
The multi-platinum selling music of Savage Garden resulted in #1 singles and albums in over 51 countries while Hayes’ solo albums have notched up sales of nearly 2 million units worldwide.
Denis Handlin AO, Chairman & CEO, Australia & New Zealand and President, Asia, Sony Music Entertainment, commented: “I am thrilled to welcome Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones back to the Sony Music family.
“I first worked with Woody in his pioneering days with great Australian rock band The Angels and on many other projects since then. Nearly 40 years since we first met it feels like we have come full circle. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to reunite with him on this deal.”
Front row L-R: Denis Handlin AO (Chairman & CEO, Australia & New Zealand and President, Asia, Sony Music Entertainment), Christine Woodruff and John Woodruff (JWM) Back row L-R: Brett Oaten (Brett Oaten Solicitors) and Keith Welsh (JWM)
Woodruff, who founded TMN in 1994, credits Hayes and Daniel Jones with much of his success and life in music.
“How often was I heard to remark, ‘There is a God’, as one record company or another refused to show faith in a wonderful song-orientated band, and Christine and I were forced by circumstance, in the middle of the grunge era, to put up our own resources and become our own record company, to help expose Savage Garden to the World.
Hayes and Jones went on to become one of the most successful Australian recording acts of all time with sales in excess of 20 million albums.
They are the reigning record-holders for the longest number of weeks on the Monitor/Billboard Adult Contemporary Airplay charts in the US for their singles ‘I Knew I Loved You’ (124 weeks) and ‘Truly, Madly, Deeply’ (123 weeks).
They are also one of only two Australian bands to have ever achieved two #1 singles in the US.
Their other releases charted highly in territories around the world and became beloved by music lovers of all nations including ‘To the Moon and Back’, ‘Break Me Shake Me,’ ‘I Want You,’ ‘The Animal Song,’ ‘Affirmation,’ ‘Hold Me’ and ‘The Best Thing’.
In a statement from Sony Music issued to TMN this morning, Jones summed up the deal perfectly: “To finally be signed to our “now worldwide label” in our home country is just perfect,” with Hayes adding, “There’s a poetic justice knowing that our master recordings have now returned home, humbly, under the guardianship of another Brisbane music industry legend, Denis Handlin”.