Can we stop hearing that this is about a new paradigm, an answer to our prayers, the SOLUTION to the music business crisis??

If you want a solution to the labels’ dilemma ask yourself where all those evaporating CD sales have gone.  Either people no longer care about the music being made or they’re getting it elsewhere.  The key is to both make better, more DESIRABLE music, and charge at the tap where people ARE getting their tunes.

You’re not going to solve your problems by signing Korn, a has-been band playing has-been music.  It’s kind of like signing a battered NFL player.  He was great once, but he no longer has the skills.  He’s worth SOMETHING, but not EVERYTHING!  Just look at Korn’s sales…  If the people wanted more nu-metal, their albums would still be moving millions of copies (along with those of their compatriots Limp Bizkit).  But nu-metal is dead.  Like hair band music.  Maybe there’s a marginal audience, but most people no longer care.

Which is why it’s so interesting that EMI wants a piece of the TOURING business.  When ticket sales are soft and merch is declining.  I mean don’t you invest for the UPSIDE?

I truly can’t figure out EMI’s motivation.  Are they just that desperate, just that flummoxed by the new world that they’ll try ANYTHING?

Better than this deal, why not a deal where they pay NO advance.  Where EVERYTHING’S on the come.  Make a good record, sell it, and you make FIVE BUCKS a CD.  But no, the label wants no innovation, they’re positively old wave.

As is Jeff Kwatinetz here.  This ain’t no new solution, it’s the same game he’s been playing for a long time.  GET A BIG ADVANCE!  That’s what’s wrong with this whole business.  Everybody wants a guarantee.  I can see guaranteeing revenue on milk, or corn, people NEED those.  But believe me, people don’t need THIS Korn.

If you want new deals look to Michael Rapino.  And what he’s doing with Clear Channel/Spinco.  You’ve got your money, we’ve got ours.  The act takes the gate, we take the ancillaries.  Hell, he’d do a no advance/all upside deal if only the greedy acts would let him.

The big bets have to go.  Everybody has to share in the upside and the downside.  Which IS what the new model is about.  Both band and company watch costs, and equally split profits.  That’s the wave of the future, not these ridiculous multimillion dollar bets between two entities that don’t trust each other whatsoever.  There’s not a manager alive who trusts major label accounting, the fact that EMI trusts ACT accounting just blows my mind.