Roger Waters dropped by BMG over Israel comments
The music rights company BMG is parting ways with the Pink Floyd cofounder Roger Waters over comments he made about Israel, Ukraine and the United States, Variety reported on Monday.
The Germany-based company had signed a publishing agreement with the 80-year-old musician in 2016 and was scheduled to release a newly recorded version of Pink Floyd’s 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon last year, but ultimately scrapped the release upon the hiring of Thomas Coesfeld as CEO. The re-recording was ultimately released by the UK-based record label Cooking Vinyl.
The split, unusual for a major publishing deal, is the latest fallout from Waters’ increasingly divisive rhetoric over Israel, which some have criticized as being antisemitic in recent months.
The rocker has remained defiant over numerous backlashes, such as a German police investigation over a “Nazi-style” costume worn on stage in Berlin last year. In April 2023, he won a legal battle allowing him to play in Frankfurt, after magistrates of the German city had instructed the venue to cancel a concert and accused Waters of being “one of the most widely known antisemites in the world”. He denounced the war in Ukraine but spoke to the United Nations security council at Russia’s invitation, claiming that its 2022 invasion of Ukraine was “not unprovoked”.
A 2023 investigation into Waters by the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) interviewed former co-workers of Waters who alleged the musician had made repeated derogatory references to Jewish people. The CAA has also published emails from Waters in which he proposed that an inflatable pig floating above his concerts should be scrawled with an antisemitic slogan; in emails from 2010, he also suggested “bombing” audiences with confetti in the shape of swastikas, stars of David, dollar signs and other symbols.
Waters, who has always denied accusations of antisemitism, spoke of being “fired” by BMG in a video interview with Glenn Greenwald last November, deep within a conversation in which the musician characterized his separation from the company as the result of pressure by pro-Israeli interests toward BMG’s parent company, Bertelsmann, and suppression of his political beliefs.
The claim was a familiar one for Waters, who has spoken often about conspiracies against publicizing his beliefs. At a concert in Birmingham, UK, last year, Waters launched into a 10minute rant in which he decried his “brutal” treatment in Germany and said numerous media outlets had been trying to destroy him for his support of human rights in Palestine. “They’re trying to cancel me like they cancelled Jeremy Corbyn and Julian Assange,” he said. “I will not be cancelled.”
Though it’s not uncommon for artists to be “dropped” from recording contracts, it is less common for a company to sever a publishing deal. In recent years, both R Kelly and Kanye West’s actions have put them at odds with companies managing their lucrative music catalogs. Kelly, now serving a decadeslong prison term for multiple felonies related to sexual misconduct, had a judge award his royalties to numerous victims. West, who lost a multimilliondollar deal with Adidas and representation by CAA over antisemitic comments in 2022, had deals with Universal and Sony Music Publishing expire without renewal.