Lady GaGa’s Manager Responds
From: Troy Carter
Subject: Re: Lady GaGa/AmazonBob,
I’m going to start calling you Charles Barkley! On second thought, Charles Barkley was at least a player in the game before he was a commentator.
With all due respect, it’s very easy to sit on the sideline and call plays. It’s a totally different story to be in the game and have to deal with the obstacles and hurdles that we face on a minute by minute basis in our business. I’m sure that 300 million people don’t read your blog, the same way that I’m sure that 300 million people aren’t interested in one particular genre of music or one particular artist.
The reality is that it’s going to take time for the marriage of music and technology to work. The tech community and the music community speak different languages and we’re working on finding the Rosetta Stone. In the meantime partnerships will be tested. Some will work and others won’t.
Although we weren’t aware of Amazon’s deal that they were offering, I applaud them for their efforts. Anytime we can get people to purchase music legally, it’s a good thing for the business. I’m sure they’ll be better prepared the next time they do such an offering.
We’ve partnered with over 27,000 non-traditional retailers worldwide on this release. No one prayed to a particular retailer. We tried something different, we’ll see if it works. As you praise Groupon, do your research and see how well they did on the Def Jam releases that they worked on. It FAILED. They aborted music for now. It’s all trial and error.
No one can predict what’s next. No one can predict a shelf life. If we left it up to the cynics there wouldn’t have been an Elvis, Beatles, Timberlake, or Bieber. It’s not fair to the hard work and effort that artists and their teams have to put in. Anybody that can make people fall in love with music is a friend of mine and anyone who can support the business of music keeps it alive for the next generation.
I’m just as frustrated as you are, as we both see the potential for music to scale. It’s going to take time, trial, and error for this to happen. I’m sure that the Born This Way launch will be successful in our eyes. It has already exceeded my personal expectations. We sold 27,000 copies in the first week on The Fame. I’m proud to say that we’re up 11% on that album over 150 weeks later. YOU CAN’T BAKE A CAKE IN THE MICROWAVE.
All of this takes time, Bob.
Lighten up a bit, it’s just music.
