Nickelback Jump on the Live Nation Bandwagon

Concert promoter Live Nation has made a major push recently to get into the record business, offering lucrative contracts to U2, Jay-Z and Madonna that cover merchandising, touring and forthcoming albums. These so-called "unified rights" deals are seen to be the wave of the future for a music industry less dependent on traditional record labels, and it was announced today that the company has a new superstar act in its stable: Nickelback.

The Canadian group, who set the standard for 21st-century mucho-sappy hard rock ballads with "How You Remind Me," signed for three albums and three concert tours with Live Nation, a deal that, according to Reuters, is valued to be worth as much as $70 million.

While Nickelback hasn’t released a new album since 2005’s All the Right Reasons, they were still spinning singles off the record as recently as last year. And demonstrating their sustained popularity with audiences, All the Right Reasons remains in the top 10 in Billboard’s Hard Rock Album charts. Sure things are an increasingly difficult thing to gauge in the fragile music business, but you have to think that Nickelback is about as close to golden as you could ask for.