Nobody's perfect!

Mr. Stoute, I’ve never met you nor ever heard of you before last Sunday. I’m sure that you’re a very nice person with the best of intentions. I haven’t purchased an ad in any edition of the New York Times. I can’t afford it, but I’m glad that someone in the music industry can.

However after reading your letter in the Sunday New York Times, I think that you may have to go back to school. Your impassioned defense of Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Eminem, accusations of NARAS members’ collective pop culture ignorance and intimations of chicanery may be misguided or at the very least uninformed.

To begin with, the NARAS membership is very conservative. In fact, NARAS itself has always been a fairly uptight organization. Sort of like the Republican Party of the music business. They’re just, for the most part, old. The members have favorites who they like to see win. They’re certainly aware of cutting edge artists, otherwise Lady Gaga, Eminem, Jay-Z and many others would never have been nominated in the first place.

NARAS is famous for periodically botching the awards. If you think that the “snubs” of Bieber, Em and Kanye are so outrageous, let me take you for a little walk down memory lane.

In 1992, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit lost the Grammy for Best Rock Song to Eric Clapton’s unplugged and slowed-down version of Layla. Hey, I love Clapton and Layla, but this version doesn’t exactly rock. In 1978 Elvis Costello lost out as Best New Artists to A Taste of Honey, who rode to victory on the back of their timeless hit Boogie Oogie Oogie. Any idea where those girls are today? We sure know where Elvis is. In 1991 Public Enemy received a nomination for Best Rap Performance but lost out to future scientologist and obnoxious parent Fresh Prince. In 1966 Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles), Good Vibrations (The Beach Boys), Last Train To Clarksville (The Monkees), Monday Monday (The Mamas and the Papas) all lost the Grammy for Best Rock & Roll Recording to…Winchester Cathedral by The New Vaudeville Band. And of course the classic screw up that is still talked about was in 1988 when Metallica lost Best Metal Performance to Jethro Tull. Granted NARAS members aren’t the hippest, but they have made efforts to avoid those gaffes in the future, even if not always successful.

Frankly I would have been more upset if Bieber had won Best New Artist. The little snot is irritating. I doubt that anybody will be humming along to Eenie Meenie 10 or 20 years from now. You’ll probably not be hearing Michael Buble, Bono or Eric Clapton singing Kanye’s immortal lyric “Let’s have a toast for the douche bags”. I happen to really like Eminem but the Grammys are like the Oscars in many ways. In 1970 John Wayne won the Oscar for Best Actor in True Grit. It wasn’t a great performance. He was just being John Wayne. He won for his body of work. So consider Eminem to be a 21^st century John Wayne. He’ll have his day…and by the way, none of these guys are on food stamps.

Let me remind you that many of the guys who made it possible for Justin Bieber, Kanye West and Eminem to be heard today never had the opportunity to win Grammys for their greatest recordings like Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino (though they were all later honored with honorary awards. Much later). Likewise The Who, Bob Marley, Diana Ross, Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Buddy Holly, none of whom ever won a Grammy.

As far as the telecast itself goes, Ken Ehrlich’s job is to put on the best show he can that features a wide array of musical performances, all in an effort to showcase the best that music has to offer for the previous year. He picks the talent from the list of nominees and of course he wants the hottest acts. He’s in the ratings business and if the Grammy telecast doesn’t get ratings the network geeks will drop the show and then you won’t have anything to get pissed about. And that would be a shame. Don’t forget that for the recording artists who perform, it’s a two-way street. Mumford & Sons, who did not win an award, got a huge sales boost immediately after their show-stopping performance. The artists benefit from the exposure and more often than not get a sales boost from performing and/or winning an award.

Neil Portnow is a nice man and a real straight arrow. He’s not going to allow any shenanigans that could possibly cast a shadow of doubt over the proceedings. There’s no way that he, Ken Ehrlich or anyone involved in the telecast have advance knowledge of the winners. This ain’t the American Music Awards. The implications of some sort of bizarre Grammy conspiracy sounds more like the single bullet theory or a Glen Beck rant.

Now I know that you spent a lot of money in an effort to express yourself. A full-page ad in the Sunday Times can cost anywhere from $15,000 to well over $100,000. I’m willing to bet that you probably got away with the lower figure and maybe even Kanye, Justin and Em all chipped in, but I wonder why someone would waste a lot of dough on something that is ultimately pointless. Can you even remember who won Best New Artist in 2001 or Record of The Year for 2005? Nobody remembers or cares. So I figure that it must be you’re trying to get some attention. Well, I have a little unsolicited advice for you-if you want to piss people off and get attention, you can save a lot of money by doing what I do—get a cheapo blog and shoot your mouth off. That way you could put the money toward something really important…like a Bentley.

© 2011, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

The new Google music service, whatever it is and whenever it launches, probably is going to be pretty boring. I’m hearing that it’s stacking up to be a download store with a locker service. Nothing really exciting or groundbreaking. Sure it will have tight integration with Android and that’s all well and good. Some interesting things could be done. But people tend to forget that Google doesn’t necessarily make fantastic consumer products and everything Google isn’t always a home run. Should I remind you of Buzz and Wave? And they haven’t really proven themselves to be terrific online retailers. The Nexus One retail experiment didn’t go so well.

One of the problems is that Google products, when first released, tend to be a little too techie for the average user. The engineers seem to smooth out the experience in later iterations over time. But they don’t always provide the greatest user experience. That’s the big edge that iTunes has, and people are used to it. It’s the industry standard. Sure Google music will take a bite of market share, but most likely out of everyone else’s ass, not Apple’s.

I also hear that Google hasn’t really gotten their act together and they don’t have the kind of team that could make waves in the industry. Basically they’re nothing but pushovers for the record labels, ready to throw tens of millions of dollars at them. The labels, of course, care about nothing but a quick windfall and will be very coy in trying to milk every last dime out of Google. They see deep pockets and aren’t going to let them go unpicked. They’re sort of like those thugs in Mexico and South America who target and kidnap executives of major American corporations for millions in ransom.

Save me! Save me!

Google doesn’t seem to understand that they have the upper hand. The industry needs them more than they need the music industry. Labels have the insane concept that Google will rescue them from Apple like Fay Wray in the grip of King Kong. The labels’ lawyers are going to have a field day with these guys. They already are the scourges of the industry and this deal will give them a new reason to justify their existence. By the way, none of these guys could make a penny actually practicing real law and you wouldn’t want them defending you in a court of law, even for a speeding ticket!

If Google thinks that they’re going to breeze through the licensing process they’re in for a real cold shower. These guys are going to make it as painful as possible now that Google has shown their hand and committed to building a service. And we haven’t even talked about the publishers yet. Those are going to be fun conversations. Wouldn’t you just love to be a fly on the wall in some of those meetings?

Frankly I think that they’ve all gone about it the wrong way. For the last decade I’ve been thinking about where the real money is in digital music and it’s in search and discovery. The trick is to monetize that activity. If I were one of these dopey label heads, I’d have gone to Google (in fact every search engine) years ago and offered my entire catalog for unlimited streaming and playlist sharing for 70% of the search revenue. If someone wanted portability charge 49 or 59 cents per download. Google knows exactly what the numbers are and could predict the search revenues almost to the penny, thus almost totally eliminating any risk on the part of the labels and I’d be willing to bet that those revenues would amount to billions. After all, search is how Google became a multi-billion dollar company. Don’t demand ridiculous advances; revenues would be flowing in instantly and paid quickly.

This would also do something that the labels have been dying to do—level the playing field as well as be rescued from that big ape. But, just like Fay Wray, they don’t have the cojones.

© 2011, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

I can handle things! I’m smart! Not like everybody says… like dumb… I’m smart and I want respect!

–Fredo Corleone

So much has happened in the business lately that I thought it would be a good idea to give credit to those who have excelled in entertaining us…an acknowledgement of sorts to the biggest bonehead of the month. To that end we have created the Fredo Corleone Award, or The Fredo for short, and it will be awarded to the most moronic figure of the month culminating in an annual kudo to the most consistently moronic person of the year. Criteria for judging includes, but is not limited to, stupid public statements, idiotic business moves, undeserved self-importance, and overall dull wittedness. Clearly there’s a lot of competition for the title.

So let’s get started with this month’s nominees

Actually, my name is Austin Powers. Danger is my middle name.

Guy Hands. This is an obvious choice as he has clearly met and exceeded all of the criteria, enough so to deserve a Fredo Lifetime Achievement Award. Enjoyable punching bag that he is, Guy made a couple of truly stupid comments this last week at an investor’s conference in Paris. Specifically he said that he and Terra Firma would “look like geniuses” if they hadn’t bought EMI. “EMI is where EMI is,” he added. And if he had been born without a penis he may have been Maria Callas.

Keep your friends close and your family closer

Rob Stringer. In an extensive piece in The Hollywood Reporter documenting the Amanda Ghost/Epic Records debacle, Stringer comes off as a complete nitwit, oddly defending Ghost while at the same time trying to distance himself.  ”I’m the first to admit that I made an experimental judgment that possibly wasn’t fair on Amanda. She struck me as a tour de force and a creative whirlwind — which the industry needs more of — and she was very keen to do the job and super-excited and confident about it. But in the last few weeks, we both agreed it was too big a mountain to climb.” The article goes on to describe Ghost’s behavior as nothing less than ghastly; even her routine of casually chain-smoking cigarettes and weed in her office. At any company in the world the human resources department would be all over this, but curiously the head of HR at Sony is another Brit crony brought in by Stringer. Acting as Ghost’s apologist, Stinger goes on to say  “Calling her abrasive could mean she’s not afraid of confrontation.” What he doesn’t admit to is how his decision (as well as his decision to hire Rick Rubin) was not only fiscally irresponsible and devastating to the artistic growth of the label, but also how this bright idea wrought havoc in the lives of dozens of label employees and their livelihoods.

Some only need one name: Cher, Madonna, Junior

Junior Bronfman. A perennial All-Star, Junior never fails to disappoint. The disingenuousness he displayed in last week’s earnings call regarding Warner’s dealings with the pioneering music service Spotify bordered on sheer art. After doing everything he could to block Spotify’s entry into the US market in a rather public Mexican standoff, Junior blinked and renewed WMG’s European deals with the start-up. In an attempt to paint himself as a digital visionary, Junior told reporters on the call “We’re pleased with the new agreement because we’ve long seen great promise in Spotify”. Way to go Nostradamus.

It’s been tough deciding on a winner. All of the nominees are certainly worthy of a Fredo. But this month’s Fredo Award goes to none other than Sony Music’s own Rob Stringer. Rob not only deserves it—he’s earned it. Congratulations Rob Stringer, The Moron of the Month, November 2010.

© 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Welcome EMI. Nice Meeting You.

I want to officially welcome Elio Leoni-Sceti, Ronn Werre and Sylvia Coleman of EMI to my little site. I was in London a couple of days ago with a friend and we just  happened to bump into the three of them and I was introduced. They told me that they were avid readers so I wanted to give them the royal treatment. In all fairness, they were very nice and had a good sense of humor about my stupidity and abuse of EMI. So I guess that I have to reciprocate and be nice. By the way Sylvia is extremely smart and Ronn and Elio showed that they could roll. Oh, and Ronn. We should talk about that friend of mine that I mentioned.  :-)

So guys, can I still beat up on Terra Firma?

© 2009 – 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Well, its been reported that about 25% of the fans who bought tickets to the O2 shows in London are keeping their tickets as keepsakes instead of getting refunds. Go figure. And Randy recently publicly stated  that in addition to the fabulous wealth of video they have from the rehearsals and other shit will be released to help make up for AEG losses. And  there was talk of a tribute concert.

Well there turns out to be a little more to it. According to a friend of mine who is very close to Randy, all of this tacky shit will still leave a $30-$35 million shortfall for AEG that Randy has been ordered to fill. So the latest grand plan is to actually take this “tribute concert”, which is basically a clone of last week’s MJ memorial service, on tour! The funeral hits the road. My only question is will Randy schlep the corpse around with the show?

Tacky tacky tacky.

© 2009 – 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Life Is Good At EMI

Here’s a really good one for you. Last week EMI sales reps started making calls to many if not all of their small accounts, mostly independent mom & pop stores, to tell them that they would no longer sell them product!!! Were these accounts bad payers? Nope. Would they not stock catalog or new artists? Nope. Then why in God’s name, you may ask,  would they simply cut loose paying customers? The answer given by sales reps — cost cutting.

So let me get this straight. EMI intends to save money by not selling their CD’s to independent retailers. Instead they want these retailers to go to one stops for their product.  These retailers are the only ones who buy catalog anymore. You sure can’t find it at Walmart and Best Buy. These are small businesses who have been loyal customers of EMI for 20, 30, 40 or more years. Like in the movie High Fidelity, these guys know every catalog number ever released. Every disk ever cut out of the catalog. They live and die by making personal recommendations to their customers–turning them on to new music. These shops are where music lovers go to discover and buy music. Several I have spoken with are so upset that they vow never to buy any EMI catalog again–or any new artist releases either. Only the certifiable hit product that they know will sell. They will no longer take chances on new EMI artists.

So I guess it just isn’t worth it to EMI to take these orders over the phone anymore. Too labor intensive. And after all, they’re doing so well that they really don’t need the business. Small potatoes. Let ‘em eat cake.

INTERESTING UPDATE: In making this policy change, EMI took the unusual step of notifying these retailers by phone instead of the standard letter. Could it be that they didn’t want anything in black & white?

Also, don’t forget that by being forced to buy from a one stop, not only does a mom & pop retailer pay more for his product (cutting into the already slim margins and pricing pressure from the likes of WalMart, etc.), but the one stops don’t carry nearly the depth of catalog that these guys need in order to make a living. And is this really a good strategy for EMI to introduce their new artists?  Another gripe they have is that now they won’t even get new and/or important releases (does EMI have important releases? Maybe the upcoming umpteenth release of remastered Beatles catalog) on Tuesdays, the new release day. It just makes it all the more difficult for them to compete and stay in business, even if it we were experiencing better economic times.

© 2009 – 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

Now that we have finally found the perfect business model for Twitter, counter revolution, along comes the NPD Group with one of those annoying reports that it just loves to churn out. This time NPD says that Twitter users buy 77% more digital downloaders  than non users. There’s a bunch of other stats, but this is the one that will get every major record label awash in hormones, panting and frothing, rushing to shove every piece of shit down the Twitter pipeline.

Once record labels discovered that MySpace was full of music lovers, they completely drowned the service with every amount of crap imaginable, turning it into a total mess. They had a&r people scouring the service, looking for the next big thing. I’m not sure that strategy has been successful, but as a whole MySpace has become completely diluted. Look for history to repeat itself.

If you weren’t sick of Twitter to begin with, you sure will be soon.

© 2009 – 2010, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

A friend in London was telling me a crazy story. Everyone knows that EMI has been cutting staff like they were lepers over the last couple of years. During this “reorganization” period they apparently had decided to fire most of the digital media people with the intention of outsourcing it instead.

They’ve apparently now done a complete about face and are actually trying to rehire many of the same people they fired over the last year with the intention of bringing the digital media stuff back inside.

I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning so much that I think I’m going to throw up.

© 2009, Wayne Rosso. All rights reserved.

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.