Rock has been declared dead so many times that the declaration has become a tradition of its own, though the catalog deals, sold-out arenas, and streaming numbers keep refusing to flatline. Open On Sunday and Digital Music News brought four industry veterans together for ‘The Value of Rock’ webinar, moderated by Lars Murray of the Unlimited Supply podcast to look at where the genre sits in the modern music business both culturally and financially.
This article was created in collaboration with DMN partner Open On Sunday.
Over roughly an hour and a half, the conversation moved from whether rock still has a pulse to how catalogs get priced, marketed, cleaned up, and protected once a deal closes. Murray framed the session by noting that the ‘rock is dead’ cliche has been a well-worn trope for decades now. The cultural drift now favors pop, EDM, and hip-hop as genres, but our panelists aren’t ready to give up on the sound defined by the electric guitar.
Ali Schlueter, Head of Frontline Marketing & Catalog Development for North America at Reservoir/Chrysalis answers the thought without hesitation: “(Rock) is not dead. It is thriving.” She points to how well rock streams on digital service providers (DSPs) and to how many shapes the genre has taken over the years, from alternative and emo to singer-songwriters like Zach Bryan and Phoebe Bridgers—which she counts under the rock umbrella.
Jay Gilbert of Label Logic adds that Luminate Reports show rock fans are among the most dedicated of any genre and that the genre moves in cycles, citing the success of Ghost filling arenas worldwide. Rock catalogs benefit from a discovery loop that never really stops, Gilbert adds. He cites an anecdote from his own life, in which his daughter came home and shared that she heard a great new band called Queen.
Scott Seine, President of Surfdog/DKM explains that streaming has equalized discovery so a song that surfaces in a social feed lands with a younger listener as a song first, detached from the decades of brand history. Fleetwood Mac got a taste of that early in TikTok’s life, as their hit “Dreams” resonated with a new audience after a man on a skateboard filmed himself singing it while drinking Ocean Spray cranberry juice.
Footage that might have aired once on television in the 1970s now lives in what Seine calls a place where “this YouTube rabbit hole allows for such amazing discovery.” He also notes that older rock carries “this incredible authenticity that comes with these older rock catalogs” for younger fans, and that discovery tends to travel backward through the lineage, as when he learned who Robert Johnson was while listening to Eric Clapton.
Kevin Dynda, Copyright Specialist at catalog finance company Open On Sunday, offered a look at how genre shapes underwriting. Industry decay curves differ by genre, with pop showing a higher peak and a quicker decline before it plateaus, while rock tends to start lower and hold on, because “the listenership is very sticky and stable,” Dynda says. He describes rock as having “a very stable floor” that exists almost exclusively for the rock genre, which he credits partly to album-oriented listening and partly to artists who write and perform their own material.
That stability has a price tag when it comes to catalog valuation, however. Dynda notes that well-tended assets leave less to find in metadata cleanup, which pushes value creation toward marketing, experiences, and listening. In his words, valuing a catalog comes down to the fact that “you’re really evaluating risk profile more than anything.”
Murray, who coined the term ‘queener’ on his podcast for a billion-dollar catalog increment, noted that Queen, Pink Floyd, and Bruce Springsteen have all moved from hundreds of millions into territory that no one would have predicted a decade ago. Dynda’s open example comes from Open On Sunday’s stake in the B.B. King catalog, held on both the publishing and label sides with partner Fresh Sonics. The team found a 50-year-old eight-song album called Lucille Talks Back that had never been on streaming. They rebuilt it as a re-imagined 50th anniversary release with guests including Doyle Bramhall II and Eric Gales.
Music supervisors tend to know exactly what they want and Ali Schlueter’s favorite proof came from Euphoria, where the supervisor grew up on a Sinéad O’Connor album and asked for the deep cut “Drink Before the War” rather than “Nothing Compares 2 U.” The song was sitting around 4,000 streams in the days before the sync, then jumped to 787,000 right after the episode it was featured in aired. Now the song sits at around 45M streams. Schlueter’s team activated the moment the placement surfaced with Spotify playlisting, ads, and a request for a clip of the scene, which she says supervisors do not always hand over.
Scott Seine adds that syncs often get approved long before they air and then those music supervisors don’t tell you once you’ve said yes. So his team now tracks their placements to make sure artists get paid and fans are aware of where they can stream the music they’ve just heard on their favorite show.
Meanwhile, Gilbert notes that the biopic lift gets the headlines while much of the music business runs on less glamorous works like syncs, interpolations, anniversaries, and behind-the-scenes storytelling. He describes a large IP company sitting on 12 acquired catalogs it had not touched simply because they didn’t have the manpower.
He notes that a reclamation project of his own revolved around 11 Rick Springfield albums reverting to the artist, where each album had to be checked for streaming availability, duplicates, missing tracks, and territory gaps. Seine describes an equivalent effort working through Iron Mountain archives where an engineer’s scribbled notes are the only map, stating: “you just gotta start somewhere and chip away.” The payoff for that came with a Clapton re-issue that surfaced three unreleased songs.
When it comes to diligence, that also involves knowing when to pass. Schlueter says she turned down a metal band’s catalog after noting that it came with no merch or touring rights in the deal. Dynda adds that the chain of title, copyright registration, songwriter splits, and third-party approvals can all compound into risk and that ownership conflicts from lost 40-year-old agreements can surface well after a catalog acquisition has closed.
Older rock catalogs can be valuable for immersive fan experiences and direct-to-fan sales, too. Reservoir has invested in the London-based immersive company Lightroom, and Schlueter described the David Bowie and Radiohead shows as a way for fans to experience artists who cannot tour or are not currently touring, adding that “getting off your phone into a room with similar fans is just such a great shared experience.” Gilbert and Seine both championed immersive audio like Dolby Atmos, with Seine recalling a Bob Marley live album at Capitol mixed so well that he could hear the cups clinking behind him. He argues that the format needs education so listeners understand that it is not exclusively for audiophiles.
Speaking on direct-to-fan models, Gilbert points out that rights holders earn “$3,000 to $5,000 for every million streams,” which is why he checks artists’ websites and nine times out of ten, finds no direct-to-consumer relationship set up. Again Gilbert holds up arena rock act Ghost as the model to emulate as they do a new drop roughly every four weeks. Dynda adds that first-party fan data is not yet a meaningful part of catalog valuations and that the industry isn’t at a point yet where it should be.
Moving on to songwriters, publishing, and what comes next, Gilbert took the contrarian position on the high multiples that Merck Mercuriadis and Hipgnosis were criticized for, arguing that those deals raised the standing of songwriters, who typically sit at the bottom of the royalty chain. Seine, whose client Dave Stewart sold to Hipgnosis early on, said the attention on songwriters is exactly what Stewart liked about the deal. Meanwhile, Dynda adds that Open On Sunday sees financing as another way for writers to access their own assets.
On publishing, Schlueter cited Reservoir’s Miles Davis 100th birthday campaign, with brand partnerships and DSP activations run by a dedicated publishing marketing team. Asked which asset is better positioned for the future, Gilbert chose publishing and told artists who receive offers keep that in reserve. “That’s a last resort option. Hold on to that publishing.”
Near the end, Murray observes that the panel came to talk about rock and ended up covering nearly everything through that prism, concluding that rock is a genre that has a strong catalog presence. “It may or may not be all that different from everything else,” says Murray. That’s perhaps the most honest takeaway of the session. Rock no longer owns the charts the way it did from the 1960s through the early 2000s, but its value lies elsewhere, in a fan base that sticks around, songs that find new listeners every time a show or social feed surfaces them, and a back catalog still full of unreleased tapes and untouched assets.
The people doing well behind the scenes with rock catalogs tend to be those who are willing to dig and Murray’s closing line applies to every deal discussed: “if you solve for the artist, usually everybody wins.”
Panelists
Lars Murray, Moderator — Murray is the host of the daily Unlimited Supply podcast, a 7 to 10 minute executive summary of music industry technology and finance developments. He’s also an advisor to companies working at the intersection of music and digital technology. He has a 30-year track record as a digital transformation strategist with work spanning Pandora, Columbia Records, Sony Music, Spotify, Apple, Google/YouTube, UMG, and WMG. He advises the media workshop WBRU Studios and earned a Certificate in Applied Agentic AI for Organizational Transformation from MIT in 2026.
Ali Schlueter — Head of Frontline Marketing & Catalog Development, North America, Recorded Music at Chrysalis Records, Tommy Boy Music, and Reservoir. She oversees North American marketing across the recorded music division, including newly launched umbrella label Reservoir Recordings and was instrumental in bringing De La Soul’s catalog to streaming for the first time. She previously held marketing roles at mtheory, IAG, and Island Def Jam.
Kevin Dynda — Copyright Specialist at catalog finance company Open on Sunday. The New Jersey-based professional brings more than eight years of experience in music rights, licensing, and metadata management from previous roles at Reservoir and HFA.
Jay Gilbert — Music Industry advisor, educator, and curator of the weekly Your Morning Coffee newsletter and podcast and Co-Founder of Digital Strategy and Audience Insights at Label Logic. He spent decades as an executive at Universal, Sony, and Warner Music creating online marketing plans for artists including Nirvana, The Police, KISS, Bob Marley, and Johnny Cash.
Scott Seine — President of Surfdog/KDM, where he oversees staff, business strategy, and company initiatives for the label and management company. Over 24 years with the company he has overseen top-charting releases and major campaigns for Glen Campbell, Eric Clapton, Brian Setzer, Sublime, Dave Stewart, The Stray Cats, and Joss Stone among others.