Lyor.\u00c2\u00a0 Please do us a favor and write Dennis and Lenny a check.\u00c2\u00a0 Write it off as a charitable donation.\u00c2\u00a0 Relief from the constant bombardment of our eyeballs and sensibilities on hitsdailydouble.com.<\/p>\n
I hope that hitsdailydouble.com is one of your bookmarked sites.\u00c2\u00a0 And that you visit it at least twice a day.\u00c2\u00a0 "Billboard" delivers a cleansed version of the news.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the Dennis and Lenny site will deliver every good rumor, every good fact they can lay their hands on.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, that’s not all they deliver.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, they don’t seem to care that much about providing a service to the viewers at large, they most desire money.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, they want to get paid.\u00c2\u00a0 As handsomely as they have been for the past fifteen years.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, up until the last couple, when the business crashed.<\/p>\n
Dennis and Lenny are powerful guys.\u00c2\u00a0 And brilliant too.\u00c2\u00a0 They saw the handwriting on the wall.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than risk prosecution as independent record promoters they created a magazine.\u00c2\u00a0 And charged their clients for ads.\u00c2\u00a0 And for this payment, the pair delivered radio promotion, or so they said.<\/p>\n
But then the toxic twins got even smarter.\u00c2\u00a0 What if they INFILTRATED the record companies.\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn’t that make them very powerful?\u00c2\u00a0 Almost as powerful as the PRESIDENTS of said labels?\u00c2\u00a0 Dennis and Lenny started brokering gigs.\u00c2\u00a0 In a fluid business, where people are constantly getting fired and hired, Dennis and Lenny created the equivalent of an employment agency.\u00c2\u00a0 They got you a gig.\u00c2\u00a0 Or found you a guy, sometimes even one under contract.\u00c2\u00a0 For this, quite understandably, they expected tribute.\u00c2\u00a0 They expected a commitment.\u00c2\u00a0 In dollars.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, seemingly all of the promo men in the business were beholden to the powerful pair, and therefore they budgeted mucho dinero to be paid to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Labels had contracts.\u00c2\u00a0 And if you paid, you got good ink.\u00c2\u00a0 And if not, well, if you were mentioned at all, it was negatively.<\/p>\n
Then the bottom fell out.\u00c2\u00a0 Labels started consolidating.\u00c2\u00a0 People were laid off.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of the "Hits"-placed employees lost their gigs.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, it wasn’t until financials turned really bad that labels stopped paying "Hits".\u00c2\u00a0 And, the twins didn’t like it.<\/p>\n
God, no one likes losing his job.\u00c2\u00a0 Can I tell you about all the fiftysomething promotion men who can’t get another gig and ended up in divorce court, if not bankruptcy?\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be you could get a gig in the video business.\u00c2\u00a0 But those days are gone.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m not sure the real estate ranks have room for another ex-promo man.\u00c2\u00a0 But Dennis and Lenny possess one thing these laid off employees don’t.\u00c2\u00a0 A voice.\u00c2\u00a0 And they’re utilizing it.\u00c2\u00a0 Like screaming babies they’re kicking and whining and trying to manipulate those in a changed world to play by the old rules.<\/p>\n
Oh, not that Dennis and Lenny aren’t trying to survive on their own terms.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re now managers.\u00c2\u00a0 You can tell by the constant hype for Hoobastank and Fall Out Boy on their site.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s bad enough, but ultimately laughable.\u00c2\u00a0 But the constant assault on the Warner Music Group is unconscionable.<\/p>\n
Then again, what Edgar Bronfman and Thomas H. Lee have done to the Warner Music Group is unconscionable.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve extracted their investment and many more millions and left the enterprise saddled with debt.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff Kwatinetz wanted his share, that could be why he made a stink with Linkin Park just before the IPO.\u00c2\u00a0 And Dennis and Lenny want their share.\u00c2\u00a0 But, unlike Kwatinetz, they’ve got no chips to cash in.\u00c2\u00a0 So, they’ve just got a constant public defamation campaign on their site.\u00c2\u00a0 Poking fun at Edgar, Lyor and all their employees.\u00c2\u00a0 When the bottom line is, there’s just not money to pay them.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not in the budget.\u00c2\u00a0 Lyor can’t see exactly what Dennis and Lenny can do for him other than stop writing this shit.<\/p>\n
Oh, Lyor used to play ball.\u00c2\u00a0 In the IDJ days.\u00c2\u00a0 But shit happens, things change.\u00c2\u00a0 Warner is a public company.\u00c2\u00a0 It just can’t justify paying for what appears to be nothing.\u00c2\u00a0 What with having settled with Spitzer.<\/p>\n
Yet, none of this stops Dennis and Lenny.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s endless.<\/p>\n
It’s kind of like the labels themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 Carping at their customers regarding a changed landscape.\u00c2\u00a0 Why are they acquiring tracks, why aren’t they buying albums on CD?\u00c2\u00a0 Why can’t things be the way they used to be?<\/p>\n
The labels are just a couple of years and a couple of changes behind Dennis and Lenny.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re heading for extinction too.\u00c2\u00a0 But rather than try to squeeze blood from a stone, why can’t Dennis and Lenny find a new way to get paid.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at Charles Koppelman.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t rail against EMI endlessly after he was blown out.\u00c2\u00a0 He tried to be a financial whiz with a Bowie Bonds operation.\u00c2\u00a0 And when that didn’t pan out, he sidled up to Martha Stewart.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, he was even featured in "Newsweek".\u00c2\u00a0 Why can’t Dennis and Lenny find a new venture?\u00c2\u00a0 And leave us left in the music business alone, without the constant harangue of anti-WMG bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got a head start on the remaining major label executives.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re smarter than most of them.\u00c2\u00a0 And richer too.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is testament to their high level of intelligence.<\/p>\n
Kallman told me he’s safe.\u00c2\u00a0 Lyor hasn’t got the budget.\u00c2\u00a0 And Atlantic is cold.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you ask for money when someone’s broke?\u00c2\u00a0 Let’s leave the Warner Music Group alone to find its own way.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if Edgar truly is contemplating pulling up stakes in Burbank, and moving Warner Brothers Records to the Big Apple, that leaves a giant hole here on the west coast, which maybe these two can fill, if they’re desirous of staying in the business.<\/p>\n
More change is afoot at Warner.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s all about the bottom line.\u00c2\u00a0 And Atlantic is in trouble.\u00c2\u00a0 But whatever happens, even if Julie Greenwald ascends to the top, it’s just a sideshow.\u00c2\u00a0 The real action isn’t in this game anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Power has shifted to the artists, and those who know this.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lyor.\u00c2\u00a0 Please do us a favor and write Dennis and Lenny a check.\u00c2\u00a0 Write it off as a charitable donation.\u00c2\u00a0 Relief from the constant bombardment of our eyeballs and sensibilities on hitsdailydouble.com. I hope that hitsdailydouble.com is one of your bookmarked sites.\u00c2\u00a0 And that you visit it at least twice a day.\u00c2\u00a0 "Billboard" delivers a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-5u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}