How dysfunctional is Sony Music that they let Barry Weiss go?  If the Yankees can sign Derek Jeter, can’t Sony make a deal with Mr. Weiss?

Who do we blame?

Let’s start with Howard Stringer.  Never has a man been lauded so much when results are in the dumper.  Howard has presided over the denouement of company after company, yet his reputation remains intact.  Sure, Sony was fading before he took over, but what has he done there?  Lose TV leadership to Samsung, hand-held music player leadership to Apple, game-playing leadership to Nintendo and then Microsoft…  I own a PlayStation 3, they want me to pop for Move when Microsoft is offering Kinect?  I’m about to strip my Sony stripes, I want nothing to do with this company featuring overpriced products that perform worse than the competition.  Ultimately Sony Music falls under Howard’s purview.  

Once upon a time, CBS Records was a leader.  Now it’s an also-ran.  Run by people who still think it’s the nineties, but execute that paradigm worse than Tommy Mottola, Donnie Ienner and the rest of that team.  The whole company is running on fumes.  Epic has been decimated, Columbia is dependent on momentary hits with no legs and the only person who seems to know what’s going on is Barry Weiss and you LET HIM GO?

TO UNIVERSAL?

Never forget that Universal Music was built on Warner talent.  The long-forgotten Bob Morgado decimated the company.  MCA Records, Universal’s predecessor, was out of hits, steered by Al Teller into oblivion.  But Edgar Bronfman, Jr. bought the company and installed Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine and now Universal is king!  Warner should be king, but Morgado fucked up and no one stopped him.

Maybe we can blame Rolf Schmidt-Holtz in the same way, but I’m not sure Rolf even knows where his legs are, I don’t think he knows how to run the company.  He’s the legacy of a Bertelsmann partnership.  But Bertelsmann is gone (and rebuilding in the profitable area of music publishing), why is Rolf Schmidt-Holtz STILL THERE?

And maybe Rob Stringer is not up to the executive stripes.  Maybe he’s more of an A&R guy than a manager.  That’s cool, BUT WHY IS HE A MANAGER?  Just because someone’s a good shortstop, that doesn’t mean they can mastermind the whole team.

Barry Weiss knows how to create hits cheaply.  He learned under the man who achieved the number one financial victory in the history of the music business, Clive Calder, and Sony lets him go?  WHY?

Sure, entities endure.  But it’s talent that truly keeps them alive.  Just like DreamWorks couldn’t survive without a catalog, the old hits are keeping Sony and the other major labels alive while the idiots running them today overspend to create momentary hits that mean ever less.  Wouldn’t you double down on the guy who knows how to do it cheaply?

This ain’t someone without experience, someone who hasn’t done it for himself, hasn’t been a success as top dog. Barry Weiss is the best link Sony has to what once was.  He’s all about the music, not about the profile, and they let him walk?

Now I’m not saying Universal has all the answers.  The company is top-heavy and is a Luddite when it comes to the new world.  But a label is worthless without hits, and Barry delivers hits.

We could ask what this means re Monty and Avery and so much more.  All I’ll say is if you deliver hits, Lucian will let you stay.  If you don’t, you’re HISTORY!

The labels are fading.  They mean less than ever before.  Remember when they were the drivers?  When everything circled back to them?  Now they’re cash poor and asking for more rights to make less money…huh?

You’d be better off investing in Coran Capshaw, who won’t go on the record but has a modern day empire built on management and touring and he even owns a record label too.  That’s the future, someone who watches costs and knows that the acts deserve the glory, not the executives.

And give Coran credit for flying to seemingly every gig of every band on his roster.

And I’m not sure his ragtag operation peopled with major label castoffs is constructed properly to triumph, I’d rather see him employing more people who are winners than those who’ve lost, but the Red Light empire is better positioned for the future than Sony is.

What if someone actually owned Sony, if it wasn’t a public company…would they let Barry Weiss go?

Utterly insane.

I mean it’s tough enough to succeed if you’re a major label, but do you have to put a stake through your heart?