A Busy Autumn For Sonopress And Topac
New albums by megastars including Adele, Coldplay and Kylie Minogue are ensuring peak capacity utilization in CD production and the manufacture of LP sleeves at Sonopress and Topac (Bertelsmann Printing Group). Meanwhile, colleagues at the Arvato subsidiary European SCM Services are responsible for coordinating the global manufacturing and distribution processes. The Adele project is one of the largest Sonopress and Topac have ever handled.
The order books are brimming, the CD production machines at Carl-Bertelsmann-Strasse in Gütersloh have been working around the clock since the summer, and the printing presses for the production of LP sleeves haven’t stood still for months: at the Bertelsmann Printing Group companies Sonopress and Topac, it’s been an extremely busy season. According to Sonopress managing director Sven Deutschmann, there are two main reasons for this impressive comeback of physical storage media: “On the one hand, LPs and CDs are still very popular with music lovers all over the world, despite all the prophecies of doom. Especially if you want to listen to an entire album, and in the best possible quality, there’s still no getting around the physical product. And on the other hand, all the major music labels and their music creators used the pandemic as an opportunity to finish new albums.”
The list of superstars who have released new albums this autumn reads like a “Who’s Who” of the international music scene – Coldplay, Kylie Minogue, BTS, Ed Sheeran and – most recently – Adele. On 19 November, “30,” the new collection of songs by the popular British singer and songwriter, was released and immediately stormed to the top of the international charts. Three Bertelsmann companies have played a small part in this latest success by the global superstar from south London: Sonopress, on behalf of Sony Music, has been producing the CDs for the European and North American markets since the summer in editions that each number in the millions. Meanwhile, Topac has produced hundreds of thousands of LP sleeves. And the experts at the Arvato subsidiary European SCM Services were responsible for coordinating the global manufacturing and distribution processes.
