In  retrospect, hiring Rick Rubin to run Big Red was a massive mistake. Yup, Rick’s running it.  From a distance.  He doesn’t go to the office, he doesn’t communicate, he dropped a ton of acts, there’s a wild cabal running the label and the worker bees have no clue what’s going on. How did this […]

Are you doing it to get rich, or because you have an innate desire to express yourself? Hello, let me introduce you to 2007, wherein the powers-that-be tell us the music business has been wrecked by piracy but those with their ear to the ground know it’s much more complicated. The biggest problem facing artists […]

Ever since Rick Rubin spoke of "subscription" in the "New York Times" the industry’s been buzzing about this topic. But what exactly are they buzzing about? We need to define terms. Is subscription RENTAL or GETTING A STEADY CHECK FROM EVERY CUSTOMER EVERY MONTH? If we’re talking rental, I’m laughing. Napster, Yahoo and Rhapsody have […]

What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the average concertgoer attends fewer than TWO SHOWS A YEAR? Yup, that’s what Michael Rapino said yesterday at the Goldman Sachs clusterfuck. Live Nation: We Want In On Ticketmaster, StubHub Why IS that? First and foremost, there are not enough acts people want […]