The only way this deal makes sense for EMI is if the band dies in a plane crash. Hopefully flying commercial. As a result of a terrorist act. The supernova of mourning might then drive catalog sales to the point where paying the band an advance of millions makes sense. But unless this happens before the next Citibank payment is due, it was wise to tell Mick and Company TO FUCK OFF!

Tell me Metallica’s leaving Warner, then I care. The metalheads have got three albums in the top 100 of the catalog chart with a combined sales figure of almost twenty five million. The Stones? They’re not even on the chart!

EMI jumped the shark because Guy Hands paid too much for the company, not because old talent refuses to record for it. It would be like paying billions for the "San Jose Mercury News". A once solid small market newspaper in the middle of a print media meltdown. At least EMI has some assets, its publishing and catalog. As for the new music business…with managers selling classic product directly to Wal-Mart and quality newbies unwilling to cough up 360 degrees of revenue for so little in return, one has to ask if this is a viable business for a major. Certainly an OVERSTAFFED major.

You can’t have a diamond seller. God, you can’t even get your product HEARD! Only someone completely outside the business would buy the pig in a poke known as EMI for such a ridiculous price.

So let’s stop saying how this cripples EMI, is further indication of a sinking ship. Any new act that wants to sign with a major because it RENTS the Stones catalog is peopled by idiots who still believe in the Easter Bunny. The band went from Atlantic to Columbia to Virgin to Universal… They’ve been AT ALL the major label groups. And they barely sell any fucking records!

And if you think Doug and Jimmy are going to get Mick and Keith on the phone to counsel their newbies…you fell off the turnip truck yesterday.

This is a banking deal, pure and simple. Universal calculated how many they could sell and made an offer. End of story. Unless, god forbid, a tragedy like the one outlined above occurs, there is no giant upside. As for three new albums… Who are they going to sign next, Zsa Zsa Gabor? How about Tony Martin, he’s over NINETY! Give him a TEN ALBUM DEAL!

Sure, that’s just part of the hype. Insiders know those records are probably not guaranteed and will probably never be recorded… But the mainstream press eats it all up! The Stones are at Universal! Dan Quayle went to the Little League World Series! The Animals have reunited and are about to sign a new deal!

No one wants new music from sixties denizens. Just the classics, thank you. Sure, there’s a hard core of nerds sitting in front of stereos playing CDs trying to decipher lyrics from this over-compressed new music, but this vocal minority is tiny. Everybody else is too busy playing Jimmy Buffett anthems on the yacht. And that’s now the target audience, WHO CAN AFFORD A DECENT STONES TICKET?

And the Stones don’t even sell out live anymore. Because they didn’t die soon enough. That was the enticement. See them now, it could be your last chance! Well, it’s been the last chance for two decades and everybody who cares already went to hear Mick rush his way through the lyrics in a monotone that is comprehensible only to those who know the words by heart. The Stones were uneven live FORTY YEARS AGO! But at least back then they cared. Now it’s a joke. It’s just a way to make money and get laid.

Not that they weren’t interested in those back then, when they still mattered. But the goal then was to make cutting edge music. Music itself isn’t even cutting edge anymore. You want cutting edge, you fire up your browser and go to the latest social networking site, you view the latest YouTube clip, you don’t sit around listening to the work of people who peaked eons ago.

I love those records. But I don’t even play them. I don’t know what drives people to buy them. Classic rock? How many more times can you hear "You Can’t Always Get What You Want"?

Dangerous?

If you’re afraid of the Rolling Stones, you must be afraid of nursing homes too. There’s more danger in the perpetrators of the Pirate Bay than ANYTHING Universal Music sells. And that’s the industry’s problem… Somehow, with all the commercialism, all the whoring out to the Fortune 500, the music has gotten short shrift. Can music come back? Can it represent what it once did in the sixties and early seventies? I doubt it. But I’m sure if it does, it won’t be purveyed by the usual suspects, who are not saving up enough money to buy their vaunted vinyl discs but employing attorneys to script golden parachutes so they won’t sacrifice their lifestyles when they lose their gigs after their companies implode.

As for innovative marketing… That’ll be a good story, the Stones in cahoots with ABKCO, their old nemesis, Allen Klein. And, THEY ALREADY joined forces for a greatest hits album. And do people even want albums anymore? What’s driving the demand for the Stones? Singles here and there maybe, but that’s it.

If the Stones gave the middle finger to the business entirely… And started marketing their music themselves… Then I’d be interested, then I’d care. But they’re renting these old masters the same way a real estate developer’s son rents out the tenement his father built way back when. There’s no new investment, just profits on what once was.

Embrace new technology. Sell your new music cheaply online like Paul Westerberg. Call Irving and make a deal with Wal-Mart… Shit, he got double digit millions for ONE ALBUM! A cheap impulse item. Maybe an album of old blues covers, your influences. Maybe the Stones PLAY Wal-Marts… Or at least one, chosen by fan/shopper demand. But the Stones don’t want to take a risk, they don’t want to invest in themselves, they just want to clip coupons. And only those who clip coupons can believe that this deal makes any difference.