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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The Times They Are A Changing
Current mood: Meh
Category: Meh Music

Annie Lennox was dropped by Sony BMG it was announced this week.
But apparently it wasn't true.
For I moment I believed it to be fact - as let's face it a similar and equally dysfunctional thing happened to me a while ago. Apparently her deal just expired and she's yet to re-sign.
I'm still gasping over the fact that a label that was once so great could lose an artist like Annie Lennox.
She's in my opinion the finest voice of our generation. To me, and millions of others she is an essential songwriter/artist/performer/poet/ I could go on and on and on.

But apparently Sony BMG couldn't.

It's a joke isn't it?
How the dying record companies can't see the forest for the trees.
I don't suppose to know the ins and outs of Annie's career or negotiations with Sony.
I suspect, much like all the dinosaurs, Sony are just being cheap.

When I first felt the insulting brush off from a major label my first instinct was to just go and get another deal as quickly as I could.
After all, A RECORD DEAL meant something right?
A TEAM behind me. MONEY. PRESTIGE.

It's a joke isn't it?

It's no secret that I decided to not even try to get another deal.
Literally didn't ask for one meeting.
I just started my own label.

At the time it was considered to be a scary thing. Crazy even.
I'd had a decade under the apparently 'safe' umbrella of a label and for the first time in my career I was about to be without one.

Forming my own label didn't get the same kinds of headlines that Radiohead did.
But I did it first. And when I did it, it was a day to day learning process. I can't deny I have found it financially difficult and challenging to try to compete with the bundles of money that record companies throw at 'priorities'. And radio, to be honest, rarely pays attention to records that don't come with one hand in the pocket. And a link to the evil empire.

But I have soldiered on - often at great cost - to maintain a sense of dignity and rebellion against what I consider to be the ugliest time in the history of popular music.

What's my point?

Well - my point is how lucky Annie should feel.
Because she, me and all those artists who the record companies bled dry of profits are now in the enviable position of holding in our hands the goose and
the golden eggs. The record companies have got rooms full of nothing to sell now.
Scrambling to make ends meet they've forgotten what you, the public want : Music.

And a career.
Through it's ups and downs.

EMI is sacking 2000 staff this week.
How many more bands do you think will get the axe?
And do you know that the new policy is to now do 'research' on albums before they even release them.
Just like Hollywood uses test audiences to decide if a film is worthy. Or if they need to change the ending!
Can you imagine how much more terrible the radio is going to sound now - now that Phony, EMI and the rest of the dinosaurs are deciding what you listen to even before you've had a chance to decide for yourself?
I imagine we can expect new releases that are the music equivalent of Basic Instinct 2.

Do you know, at the end of my record deal, it got so bad that the record company refused to even pay for the transport for my band to get to and from major television shows to perform on them.
We're talking Top Of the Pops and Popworld. They suggested the band could 'get the tube' at their own expense!
Yeah with their amps, guitars, drumkits. Just pop on the tube and front on up and perform for free!

Shame on you, Sony.
Shame on all of you.
The amazing artists are all going it alone.

Whatever Annie decides to do I hope she uses her freedom wisely.
I hope she realizes that the millions of souls around the world who connect with her pain, sorrow, peace and joy are still here.
And this time, perhaps, we'll be able to get to the music without all the bullshit.

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