"And everybody thought I was done. Ha! Hey Howard, can I still keep my Medicare?"
A friend was strolling down Madison Avenue the other day when he noticed a chauffer-driven Maybach parked outside 555 Madison Ave, the building that houses Sony Music’s annex across the street from the mother ship. Soon to be formally crowned CEO Doug Morris has been given a temporary office at 555 until July 1 when he moves over to the corner office suite on the 32nd floor of 550 Madison, and the Maybach was evidence that Doug was in the house.
Morris has reportedly been holding a series of meetings in preparation for his coronation and reports have come out of Sony that he is none too happy with what he’s discovered. Details are sparse at the moment, but suffice to say that changes are certainly in the air.
The rumors of L.A. Reid joining Morris at Sony are now being interpreted as a fait accompli. However some rumors are emerging that Reid may be running Epic Records, which presently reports to Rob Stringer following the disastrous reign of Amanda Ghost. The rumors extend further to say that current RCA/J President A&R Peter Edge will head the RCA/Jive label group.
Neither of these two rumors makes a lot of sense. First of all, everybody knows that Morris is not comfortable unless “his guys” surround him, and Reid is definitely one of “Doug’s guys”. Can you really see Reid answering to Rob Stringer? Let’s face it, even though Stringer has been hyping his success with Glee, Susan Boyle, Jackie Evanko, Michael Jackson and now Adele, all of those projects were signed, produced and/or delivered by third parties like Simon Cowell, the producers of the hit Fox TV show, Sony’s UK company (as in the case of Adele), or the recently deceased. Combine this with the Amanda Ghost fiasco and the embarrassing Crosby, Stills, Nash/Rick Rubin affair and Rob Stringer really doesn’t have a lot to crow about. Furthermore, Stringer was stung badly by the public relations blowback from published reports of these events in the Hollywood Reporter and here.
It makes much more sense that Reid would head up the RCA/Jive group where he’d answer to Morris directly as opposed to Peter Edge who is an unknown quantity. L.A. could claim his rightful place as one of “Doug’s guys” as opposed to one of “Stringer’s simpletons”. Then again, this is all conjecture, but an even better question is “What will Morris do with fellow septuagenarian Clive Davis?” That’s going to be real fun.
On yet another note, word is that tensions between Morris and his UMG successor Lucian Grainge are at an all-time high. Morris is reportedly more livid than ever with Grainge and feels that Lucian completely betrayed him after he handpicked the Englishman to succeed him as CEO.
Grainge is making big investments in A&R, is one tough cookie and extremely competitive. Clearly he feels as though investing in talent is tantamount to marketing product supplied by others. But in all fairness though, you can’t beat selling tons of records by dead guys, can you?
© 2011, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.
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