He’s pissed that I’m constantly bashing major labels. He wanted our conversation to be off the record, but I felt that would undermine the reason for him calling, which was to get his perspective on the record, so here it is.

Warner is not in the business of domination. It’s about signing a few good acts and building their careers. Lyor says to look at their release schedule. It’s not overpopulated.

As for signing those acts, Lyor doesn’t believe in bidding wars. If you invite him to a showcase and there’s another label there, he walks right out. He sees no upside in overpaying for acts.

Meanwhile, when he got to Warner, he constantly heard the refrain that it was "too early" to sign an act. He scrapped that philosophy, he believes it’s never too early. His mantra is sign and develop. So at Warner build it and we will come is not the driving principle, sure they want to help already established artists get bigger, but they’re primarily interested in finding raw, undeveloped talent, without all the traction to ignite a bidding war, that wants to go into partnership on the road to success.

Speaking of partnerships… 70% of Warner acts now have 360 deals. Lyor stressed how difficult this was to achieve, with its competitors only interested in recording rights. Warner’s reinventing the wheel.

Lyor stressed that before the CD explosion 360 deals were de rigueur, that Warner is returning to what once was. He believes 360 deals are good because the label is thinking about the act every day of the year, this is good for their careers.

I brought up the concept of a fair deal, of compensation for the act. I tossed around the concept of 50% of the net going to the act. Lyor agreed in principle, without committing to that specific number.

I also brought up the concept of transparency. Lyor said Warner was developing an app that acts could pull up on their phones that would display everything going on, from streams to airplay to… But he stressed that sometimes it’s harder to change what was than build from scratch, it’s taking longer than he’d hoped, but it’s coming.

Of course I brought up the concept of compensation. That it looked ugly that he and others at the company were being paid so much when the company was losing money.

Lyor said the company was not losing money.

And he said some of the acts were making tons.

I told him he needed to get this story out.

Lyor said he wants to develop great music that benefits society, that’s Warner’s goal. As for my comment that Steve Jobs only gets a dollar in salary and shares in the upside…Lyor didn’t specifically respond to this. Although he did say he’d been in the business for thirty years, had slept on floors and believed he earned his compensation and that you need skilled, experienced people to shepherd a company into the future.

Lyor Cohen is a force of nature. His style is a bit different from Steve Jobs’s. Steve is all about the reality distortion field, charismatically taking you into his own universe and convincing you. Lyor is more in your face. But his will is just as strong.

I told him I have no investment in the major label dying. That I had two goals, one of which has now been achieved.

Yes, one goal was all the music to all the people at a low price. That’s what Spotify delivers.

The other is great music created by people who are fairly compensated. Lyor said he agreed with this. I didn’t bring up the concept of creating it without interference, I spaced that, so I don’t have his response thereto.

If Warner Music can achieve this, more power to it.

One does have to admit Warner is a leader in the new world. It derives more of its revenue from digital, it’s the aforementioned leader in 360, it did not sign on to the money-losing Vevo… But will this be enough? Does Lyor see enough of the new world to transition from the old? Time will tell, although he’s convinced me he’s trying, that he’s remade the company and is less concerned with the past than the future.

As for his competitors…

It’s hard not to beat up Sony. Doug Morris is old school. Sure, a company is nothing without hits. But a hit ain’t what it used to be. EMI is about to be sold and Universal is in upheaval, we’ve yet to see Lucian Grainge’s complete philosophy, never mind the lean, mean team he uses to execute it. But Grainge comes from the hit-driven UK, whereas the US is depleted and depressed, there’s not a dominant radio format, people don’t follow music like the horse races as they do in the UK. Does Lucian truly understand America?

Time will tell.

But we do know the majors’ dominance came as a result of control of distribution, which they’ve lost, anybody can get on iTunes and Spotify. And sure, radio airplay still sells the most records, but radio is fragmented and losing power, so majors’ dominance of this market is less important as time goes on. And then comes the money. You couldn’t do it alone, you needed the major wallet. That’s no longer true, you can do it yourself if you want to.

So the majors no longer control the market. The historical foot-dragging and demonizing of its customer base has put it further behind in the future world. It’s kind of like BlackBerry, thinking that e-mail is all that counts, not foreseeing the app world. But that does not mean a company can’t turn around.

Right now, Warner is at the forefront of the major game. We do need entities to develop and promote music. The majors had a head start. Sony has squandered this advantage, Universal is a question mark. Will Warner win in the future?

Like Lyor said, Warner isn’t in the domination game. Warner’s winning does not mean no one else can. Can Lyor figure out a way to survive and be profitable? He’s trying. And I can’t say one thing he told me on the phone was categorically incorrect.

But that does not mean Warner cannot have competitors. And that they cannot be brand new. That’s your challenge.