Jimmy Shoes.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what they called Jimmy Iovine in the studio.<\/p>\n
They laughed at him behind his back.\u00c2\u00a0 Without a college degree, driving a Mercedes-Benz coupe, needing to work his way up the ladder.<\/p>\n
Yes, Jimmy needed it.\u00c2\u00a0 We can analyze why, but that’s not important.\u00c2\u00a0 Iovine’s drive brought him to the top.\u00c2\u00a0 From Shelly Yakus’ assistant to employing Shelly on his production projects to working with Stevie Nicks, then U2 and eventually helming Interscope.\u00c2\u00a0 The business was built upon the backs of men like Jimmy Iovine.<\/p>\n
But somewhere along the line, the culture changed.\u00c2\u00a0 Ahmet and his brother did not arise from the bottom financially, but they needed to follow their passion for music.\u00c2\u00a0 This is what drove them.\u00c2\u00a0 Mo Ostin fell into running a record label.\u00c2\u00a0 A financial wizard, Frank Sinatra put him in control and Mo learned on the gig, eventually blossoming and constructing the best record company that ever existed.<\/p>\n
All the old titans didn’t come from within.\u00c2\u00a0 They were scrappers.<\/p>\n
But then came all the money.<\/p>\n
Ahmet sold Atlantic to Warner for a pittance.\u00c2\u00a0 Less than Tommy Mottola made at Sony in a year.\u00c2\u00a0 You see in the nineties, all the label executives made so much money that they suddenly saw themselves as members of a different class.\u00c2\u00a0 No longer street urchins, but refined hitmakers, who lived a lifestyle befitting kings.\u00c2\u00a0 They’d left their histories behind.\u00c2\u00a0 They got together at City of Hope dinners and made like they were friends.\u00c2\u00a0 And when Napster arrived they were caught completely flat-footed.<\/p>\n
Funny, because the impresarios of yore capitalized on trends.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether it be folk music, British Invasion, the San Francisco sound or disco.\u00c2\u00a0 They chased a buck.\u00c2\u00a0 Utilizing the same logic, shouldn’t they have chased the Internet?<\/p>\n
But they felt superior to the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially to boy wonder Shawn Fanning and his band of renegade backers. Hummer Winblad was a venture capital company.\u00c2\u00a0 Fanning’s uncle was only in it for the money.\u00c2\u00a0 These people didn’t know anything about music.\u00c2\u00a0 These interlopers had to be taught a lesson.<\/p>\n
But it was these outsiders who imparted a lesson to the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 That the fat cats still haven’t recovered from.<\/p>\n
Despite the press releases, suing customers does not decrease P2P trading.\u00c2\u00a0 But rather than admit this truth publicly, the barons of yore are fighting the public will.\u00c2\u00a0 The public is now the enemy.\u00c2\u00a0 As if eons of commerce rules can suddenly be erased.<\/p>\n
I was on a conference call with the President of a major label.\u00c2\u00a0 He was trying to convince me that it was a mistake to sell at iTunes.\u00c2\u00a0 Longwinded, he went on for ten minutes without me interrupting.\u00c2\u00a0 And then I told him he was wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 So, this gentleman launched into another ten minute spiel, essentially the same, yet delivered more vociferously.\u00c2\u00a0 I repeated my mantra and this gentleman became exasperated.\u00c2\u00a0 So, very slowly, he started in one more time.\u00c2\u00a0 And after telling him I understood his logic but the marketplace dictated otherwise, he told me we had to meet in person, so he could show me.<\/p>\n
I wondered what it was like to work for this person.<\/p>\n
I don’t know if you read that article in the "New York Times" about the shrinks to the ultra-rich.\u00c2\u00a0 They charge $750 an hour. When one doctor asked a recalcitrant Congressman if anybody ever disagreed with him, this lawmaker said it had happened once.\u00c2\u00a0 And he’d fired the underling.\u00c2\u00a0 No wonder the Congressman wasn’t heeding the shrink’s advice!<\/p>\n
That’s what those running the old wave music business are like.\u00c2\u00a0 Forces of nature.\u00c2\u00a0 Believing they can dictate reality by sheer will.<\/p>\n
They told their employees to scrub P2P software from their computers when logic would tell you they should be stealing like crazy, to find out how the public, the supposed enemy, is functioning.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you stood up to your boss you were considered a troublemaker, you were fired.<\/p>\n
I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s November 10th "New Yorker" story entitled "The Uses Of Adversity".\u00c2\u00a0 It focuses on Sidney Weinberg, who rose from the streets to run Goldman Sachs.\u00c2\u00a0 His success was based on being an outsider.\u00c2\u00a0 He could speak the truth that those in the club could not.<\/p>\n
The music industry has become a club.\u00c2\u00a0 It doesn’t want to hear any contrary opinions.\u00c2\u00a0 It believes it’s entitled to rule forever.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s precisely this insider quality that’s devastating it.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Iovine’s a bit smarter than most.\u00c2\u00a0 He still knows it’s about the artists.\u00c2\u00a0 He no longer demonizes Net startups in print, but sidles up to some.\u00c2\u00a0 But his sheer power has created a blind spot.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s no longer of the street.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s about image.\u00c2\u00a0 The number one hitmaker, the Oz of the chart.\u00c2\u00a0 And this is hurting him and Universal Music.<\/p>\n
Has Doug Morris been hampered by graduating from Columbia?\u00c2\u00a0 Can he not sympathize with the college dropouts that are creating the applications that are ruining his business?<\/p>\n
Edgar Bronfman, Jr. never had to steal.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe he doesn’t understand the mentality.\u00c2\u00a0 Lyor Cohen is not going to cross him because he’s being paid too much.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the money men…\u00c2\u00a0 The holier than thou private equity companies want nothing to do with the street.\u00c2\u00a0 They want to fly private and stay at exclusive resorts.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re out of touch, and they believe money triumphs in the end.\u00c2\u00a0 But no amount of money has been able to stifle file-trading.<\/p>\n
As for Clive Davis, he has just denied the future.\u00c2\u00a0 As if Whitney Houston can be rehabilitated and can sell ten million CDs.\u00c2\u00a0 As for telling Mr. Davis that he’s wrong, that hasn’t happened in memory.\u00c2\u00a0 He takes pleasure from always being right, from wining and dining media heavyweights to promote his vapid projects.<\/p>\n
But the masses aren’t watching TV and listening to radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Not those stations, not in quantity.\u00c2\u00a0 And niche product made for almost nothing on computers is revered by many.\u00c2\u00a0 But since this is so scary, the concept of relinquishing control, of possibly being wrong, of needing to learn something, the old heavyweights would rather jeopardize their businesses than risk losing face.<\/p>\n
You can’t change the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can listen to it.<\/p>\n
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