Def Leppard agree deal to put music on streaming services

British rockers Def Leppard have finally made their music catalogue available on streaming services for the first time.
Despite selling more than 100 million albums over the course of a 40 year career, the heavy metal band’s tracks has been absent from digital platforms like Spotify, iTunes and Amazon Music as they haggled with bosses at their label Universal Music over royalty rates.
On Friday (19Jan18) the group announced they had resolved their differences with record executives and signed a deal to put their music online, meaning fans would now be able to listen to their back catalogue in all its glory.
“It is with a mixture of relief and euphoria that we now see our entire catalogue finally getting a digital release,” frontman Joe Elliott said in a press release. “Having embraced every other format with open arms, especially and more recently the re-emergence of vinyl, we’re now going to be available to everyone everywhere and honestly, it’s as exciting as the original releases were.”
Bass guitarist Rick Savage added, “Finally the wait is over! Our music is now available on all digital formats. Very excited. Thanks for your patience and continued support.”
The group have had a long-running dispute with Universal executives over payments for digital releases of their music, as they wanted the same fees they earned for physical sales.
Explaining the band’s argument in 2012, Elliot told The Hollywood Reporter, “We want to get the same rate for digital as we do when we sell CDs, and they’re trying to give us a rate that doesn’t even come close. They (label bosses) illegally put up our songs for a while, paying us the rate they chose without even negotiating with us, so we had our lawyer take them down.”
To celebrate the digital release of their music, the band are holding a global listening party on Friday (19Jan18). The rockers have also announced a new U.S. and U.K. tour, which begins in Hartford, Connecticut in May (18).