London Calling

Eeeeuuuuu. What's That Smell?

I know that I have been writing a lot lately about EMI. I know that it seems as though I’m beating up on them. But to paraphrase the great Willie “The Actor” Sutton’s response when asked why he robbed banks, “Because that’s where the money is”.

Last week brought lots of news from the ongoing soap opera that is now EMI. Losses, write downs, artist discontent, and what seems like endless executive turmoil have marked the tenure of new owner Guy “Ham” Hands. Mr. Hands, when acting as CEO of EMI, alienated artists and managers to the point that it boiled over into name calling in the press and threatened liable suits. There exists in the UK music industry a group of very influential artist managers who are referred to as “The Black Hand Gang”, and they all have or had important clients signed to EMI. The group includes Jazz Summers, Tim Clark and David Enthoven, Brian Message, Dave Holmes and loosely works together as sort of an ad hoc artists’ rights group in regard to their EMI artists. The Black Hand Gang holds all of the EMI major artist assets and Hands did not make a very good impression on them. So he finally wised up, some would say too late, stepped aside and brought in the perfect man to save the business–an Italian executive experienced in marketing soap suds.

Now things seem to be lurching into high gear. The Rolling Stones, Supergrass and Radiohead left the label and Coldplay only delivered their last mega-selling album on the condition that EMI have absolutely nothing to do with the marketing. Coldplay would handle it themselves and EMI would foot the bill. Then Coldplay decides to give away their next album, a live throwaway compilation, denying EMI some much needed billing. But the UK’s Daily Mail broke the story last week that EMI’s young female superstar Joss Stone is so pissed that she’s actually willing to buy her way off the label! You know you have problems when an artist is actually giving money to a record company.

Prom King Guy With His Queen

To compound the situation, The New York Post also reported on a rift between the once good chums Guy Hands and soap selling EMI CEO Elio Leoni-Sceti. The Post reports that the two came into conflict over EMI North America COO Ronn Werre. It seems that Hands wanted to give Werre a “take it or leave it” offer once his contract had expired. Werre went out and got a better paying job at Sony. Hands got pissed and wanted Elio to hire back Werre at any cost. Elio was embarrassed and Sony sued. So the upshot is that Werre is swinging a big dick, Elio has been emasculated and Hands feels like Henry VIII with a new girlfriend. So don’t be surprised if Ronn Werre suddenly becomes Guy’s new Jane Seymour to Elio’s Ann Bolyn and is crowned queen of the EMI prom.

Jr. Moves To London

And just to prove that all of the action is in London these days, our genealogically advantaged little buddy Edgar Jr. is rumored to be moving there. So how does all of this play into Warner Music’s longstanding effort to gobble up EMI? Pretty well, I imagine. Jr. will now be siting on the sidelines with the ability to quietly stoke the overheated British press and further pick away at the ailing EMI. The Brits look upon EMI as a national trust in a sense. A part of the English fabric. So it will be interesting to see how Jr. will sow the seeds of public discontent with Terra Firma’s ownership of the company.

So who will be the next artist to jump ship at EMI? I have nothing but gut instinct to base this on, but my guess is Robbie Williams, arguably EMI’s biggest star. My guess is that Williams and his management are so disgusted with what’s been happening at EMI that they feel they just don’t need them anymore. Why? Because IE Music, Robbie’s management firm, has a longstanding business relationship with Ingenious Media, the top media investors in Europe and one of the few independent investment firms committed to the music space. And besides, the IE guys know what they’re doing. And they don’t need EMI. At all. And don’t kid yourself–EMI made plenty of dough on the first of what is now called a 360 deal. If you knew how much revenue Robbie Williams generates, mostly outside of the US, it would bring tears to your eyes.

When Terra Firma first took over I was in touch with Guy Hands and company. I was having one of several long conversations with one of Guy’s emissaries one day–they were still moving into the EMI building, it was that early– when I told him that everyone in the record business would do everything they could to make Terra Firma’s EMI fail. He was astonished and asked why on earth that would be. My answer was simple. Schadenfruede. In the music business its not good enough for you to succeed, you must also see your friends fail at the same time. That no matter how progressive EMI planned to be, they would meet resistance from every other label. It ain’t like running rest stops on the autobahn. As it turns out, I was wrong. They’ve fucked up so much that they didn’t need help from anybody.

© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

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Tags: Coldplay, Elio Leoni-Sceti, Guy Hands, Joss Stone, music, Radiohead, record label, Robbie Williams, Terra Firma, Warner Music