Owner EMI reportedly are putting the world famous Abbey Road Studios up for sale. The London site is linked to the eponymous Beatles album and it’s infamous zebra crossing cover.
EMI has recently revealed that it needs to raise more than £100m to avoid banking penalties, and reported a pre-tax loss of £1.75bn for the year to 31st March 2009. EMI hope to raise around £30m by selling the studios.
Sir Paul McCartney has now come forward with some good news as he told BBC news that a group has come up with a bid to save the land mark facility.
McCartney said: “There are a few people who have been associated with the studio for a long time who were talking about mounting some bid to save it. I sympathise with them. I hope they can do something, it’d be great. I have got so many memories there with the Beatles.”
“It still is a great studio. So it would be lovely if somebody could get a thing together to save it.”
The Beatles named their final album after the studio in 1969 after using Abbey Road for most of the band’s recordings .
The intended sale of the studios, not yet confirmed by EMI, was reported by the Financial Times on Tuesday.
The building, originally a Georgian town house, became the world’s first custom-built recording studio in 1931 and still attracts fans from across the world. The crossing has been moved since its album appearance.
The large studio can accommodate a full orchestra and is set up to record anything from symphonies to film scores .
Way back in 1958 Cliff Richard performed ‘Move it’ , which is regarded as the first European rock’n’roll record there and the Beatles recorded most of their albums and singles in the 1960s; Pink Floyd produced Dark Side of the Moon and Manic Street Preachers, Travis and Blur have also featured there.
The Financial Times reported that in todays hi tech world, in which bands can record on laptops, its studios are said to have become too expensive. The FT quoted a media lawyer saying: “The brand is worth more than the building … what you have is a very expensive piece of heritage. If an artist goes to a label and asks to record at Abbey Road they will be met with maniacal laughter.”
Paul was right. An institute like this should be saved. Thank gd it was saved in this horrible music climate 🙂