Who gives a shit if the Stones leave EMI.\u00c2\u00a0 If I were Guy Hands, I’d say GOOD RIDDANCE!<\/p>\n
That’s what the label needs, another one-sided deal with a hefty advance just to show the industry they’re still in business.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, isn’t this one of the reasons the majors are in trouble to begin with, paying outrageous advances to acts that don’t earn it back?<\/p>\n
You know what Mr. Hands can tell Mick Jagger?\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll pay you NO advance and an incredible royalty rate.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t have to go to Wal-Mart, you can make money right here.<\/p>\n
And Jagger can’t go to Wal-Mart.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the Stones don’t sell much new product.\u00c2\u00a0 Never have.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a catalogue business, but Wal-Mart doesn’t stock catalogue!\u00c2\u00a0 No, the Stones need someone who can distribute all of their post ABKCO stuff, from "Sticky Fingers" on.\u00c2\u00a0 They need a traditional label.<\/p>\n
They can’t even go with Michael Cohl, there’s no infrastructure there.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe a hefty payment, but it’s hard to get ahead when you’ve got no product in the marketplace.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, eventually everything will be digital, and anybody, even an individual, can make a deal with iTunes.\u00c2\u00a0 But iTunes\/Amazon\/digital isn’t going to dominate, not even close, when the Stones’ deal with EMI expires in March.<\/p>\n
There’s history here.\u00c2\u00a0 Richard Branson was done with the record business.\u00c2\u00a0 He wanted out.\u00c2\u00a0 He deplored the headaches and wanted to invest in new businesses.\u00c2\u00a0 But Virgin Records wasn’t sexy enough.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn’t have enough marquee artists.\u00c2\u00a0 So he signed the Stones after their Atlantic contract expired.\u00c2\u00a0 The lovable Ahmet didn’t want to make the deal, it was too rich for his blood.\u00c2\u00a0 And it was too rich for Branson’s blood too.\u00c2\u00a0 But not for EMI’s.\u00c2\u00a0 Which purchased Virgin for an inflated price, partly based on getting the Stones, even though the Stones had never ever released a record on Virgin.\u00c2\u00a0 And, as stated above, their albums did not have a great track record for moving product.\u00c2\u00a0 But EMI wanted market share.\u00c2\u00a0 They wanted to impress investors.\u00c2\u00a0 And investors thought the Stones were the world’s greatest rock band.\u00c2\u00a0 And the world’s greatest rock band sells a shitload of records, right?\u00c2\u00a0 Wrong.<\/p>\n
Robbie Williams.\u00c2\u00a0 His last record stiffed.\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly dropped significantly in sales.\u00c2\u00a0 Was that because his label dropped the ball or the public was just over him?\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe, he released a substandard record.\u00c2\u00a0 Robbie claims to still be a superstar, but is he?<\/p>\n
And everybody talking about McCartney leaving EMI…\u00c2\u00a0 Give me a break.\u00c2\u00a0 Who else was going to pay him what Starbucks did?\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly not a major label.\u00c2\u00a0 No major label was going to pay a fortune to lose money.\u00c2\u00a0 Only Starbucks, as a way to break into the label business, as a way to sell coffee.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not an EMI flaw, the deal just didn’t make sense.<\/p>\n
All those deals no longer make sense.\u00c2\u00a0 And Guy Hands is finally admitting it.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes a newbie to state the obvious.\u00c2\u00a0 That the old model is dead.\u00c2\u00a0 You can’t start behind the eight ball, everybody’s got to share in the upside.\u00c2\u00a0 More of a joint venture than an exorbitant advance against royalties.<\/p>\n
The Stones are mercenary.\u00c2\u00a0 The utter fucking worst.\u00c2\u00a0 Will their financial footsteps be as nimble now that Prince Rupert has retired?\u00c2\u00a0 I doubt it.\u00c2\u00a0 But we do know they’re positively old school.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll go to the entity that pays them the most.<\/p>\n
Let’s not talk about the movie soundtrack.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, didn’t Best Buy have an exclusive on their DVD box?\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sure there’s some loophole in their contract that allows them to take the soundtrack to the Scorsese film elsewhere.\u00c2\u00a0 But this is not significant.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not a diss on EMI.\u00c2\u00a0 So they go to Universal, which has a great operation.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s positively old wave.\u00c2\u00a0 All the innovation Guy Hands is talking about is not in evidence at Universal.\u00c2\u00a0 Doug Morris is waiting for Congress to approve blowing up traders’ computers, possibly lynching them in the town square, he thinks he can beat this thing, he believes the good old days are just around the corner.<\/p>\n
But the future is here.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about niche.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about transparent accounting after reasonable expenditures in production and marketing.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not about rolling the dice for the big money, it’s about eking out nickels.\u00c2\u00a0 God, even the Stones don’t sell out anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone’s seen ’em.\u00c2\u00a0 How many times can you be ripped off?<\/p>\n
And I love listening to "Let It Bleed", all the classic records.\u00c2\u00a0 But I don’t need "Bigger Bang", and based on anemic sales neither does anybody else.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe a new Led Zeppelin album would sell, maybe a Pink Floyd collection of new material would be scooped up (AND PAID FOR!) by millions.\u00c2\u00a0 But just about every classic act, especially those that have not gone away, that have been on the road, that are still in the marketplace, cannot GIVE AWAY new material.\u00c2\u00a0 The audience doesn’t want it.\u00c2\u00a0 They just want the hits, each and every one of them for their exorbitant fee paid.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if you don’t play the hits the people are PISSED!<\/p>\n
What a far cry from the seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 When the band played the new album.\u00c2\u00a0 When the STONES played the new album.\u00c2\u00a0 But when Page and Plant toured together, even though they had a new album in the marketplace, by the end of the tour they were barely playing it, people didn’t want to hear it, they talked and went to the bathroom when the new material was played.<\/p>\n
The curse of success.<\/p>\n
Then again, you can sell those fucking tickets.<\/p>\n
So, if you’re worried about your image, sign the dinosaurs.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll get a ton of press.\u00c2\u00a0 But, after you pay them, you’ll be positively frightened.\u00c2\u00a0 For you’ll see you won’t make any money.\u00c2\u00a0 And the fact that the crusty oldsters are on your label won’t impress those you truly need to do business with, the young ‘uns.<\/p>\n
We’ve lived through the industry circle jerk for far too long.\u00c2\u00a0 The past is done.\u00c2\u00a0 We need a new era.\u00c2\u00a0 If somebody comes knocking on your door, promising wares that don’t exist, for which there will be incredible demand, wanting beaucoup bucks for the opportunity to distribute the tracks, PASS!\u00c2\u00a0 Just tell them you’d rather invest in Apple than the act.\u00c2\u00a0 The return is better.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you want to BUILD something, then the label is interested.<\/p>\n
But superstars don’t want to build anything.\u00c2\u00a0 They just want their MONEY!\u00c2\u00a0 Like drug lords.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re entitled to their money.\u00c2\u00a0 No one says no to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Until now.\u00c2\u00a0 Guy, LET THEM GO!<\/p>\n
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Who gives a shit if the Stones leave EMI.\u00c2\u00a0 If I were Guy Hands, I’d say GOOD RIDDANCE! That’s what the label needs, another one-sided deal with a hefty advance just to show the industry they’re still in business.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, isn’t this one of the reasons the majors are in trouble to begin with, paying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-hq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}