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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | Stewart Mason <flamingo@theworld.com> |
| Subject | Re: More musicians lose jobs |
| Date | Wed, 31 Mar 2004 12:39:01 -0500 |
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Number one, I have no idea whether the labels in question were started in
house (as EMI did with Manhattan and EMI America back in the '80s) or
acquired (like Blue Note or Liberty). Frankly, I've never heard of either
of them. But assuming that they were acquired, which is entirely likely:
It takes two to make a business deal. Is there footage of the previous
owners of these labels being held at gunpoint and forced to sell out to
EMI? Did they cash EMI's checks when they got them?
I don't disagree that real actual people are being screwed here, on both
the artistic and the business side of the equation, but these people
presumably went into this business relationship with their eyes open. As
the old fable goes, they knew EMI was a snake when they let them in.
S
At 10:25 AM 3/31/2004 -0700, Sam Smith wrote:
>This is sound business reasoning, Stewart, but there's one factor you
>leave out. The big labels didn't start up two Christian labels, for
>instance, they acquired them, right? I mean, the big boys got where they
>are mostly through merger and acquisition. So I guess the moralist in me
>would say that if you don't NEED another Christian imprint (or punk or
>jam or C&W or whatever) don't freakin' BUY it. Because by buying it,
>then carving it up and dumping people on the streets, you really have a
>business model that is designed, more than anything, to destroy jobs and
>opportunities. It's similar, in dynamic, to what we saw in the '80s,
>with amoral raiders annihilating things left and right (think Richard
>Gere' character in PRETTY WOMAN, for instance).
>
>I don't object to sound business practice, in theory. But there are ways
>of behaving that account for the very real human equation of your
>actions. To use Tocqueville's term, we're talking about the difference
>between self-interest, period, vs. "self-interest, rightly understood."
>
>Stewart Mason wrote:
>
>>At 11:04 AM 3/31/2004 -0500, garymaher@juno.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Another step on the road to each major releasing just 5 CDs per year,
>>>each of which will sell 87 kajillion copies, providing gainful employment
>>>to a grand total of 25 artists and bringing even more homogeneity to the
>>>airwaves and tastes of a generation . . .
>>>
>>>
>>
>>I dunno, reading this article, I mostly just see sound business moves that
>>drastically cut overhead, which is the first step towards profitability. I
>>mean, WHY did EMI have two Christian music labels, with two staffs and two
>>artist rosters? Doesn't it make a lot more sense to just have one?
>>
>>What the major labels have to do -- and it looks like EMI and Warner
>>Brothers are both getting this, which is encouraging -- is to reduce the
>>bloat and stop the scattershot approach where they release 100 albums with
>>the hopes that maybe one or two of them will hit. If the major labels can
>>get to the point where a record can sell only 5000 or 10,000 copies and be
>>profitable, I don't see how that's a bad thing.
>>
>>S
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>--
>___________________________________________________________
>Sam Smith
>1020 Jersey St. #2
>Denver CO 80220
>303.321.0515 /h | 303.981.4398 /c
>orb@colorado.edu | sam@lullabypit.com
>http://www.lullabypit.com
>
>...it's a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the
>lights shining sideways when the night is down, or going in
>strange places with a dog nosing before you and a dog nosing
>behind, or drawn to the cities where you'd hear a voice
>kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch,
>and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing
>from your heart.
>
> - John Millington Synge
>
>
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