DO MUSIC COMPANIES REALLY WANNA MAKE MONEY- AND DO THEY KNOW HOW?

Let’s face it loud and clear: Music companies are unsexy and those days- not long ago- of being in a music company and showing that name card like some badge of courage and entitlement are gone forever.

Show a card saying you’re with a music company today and faces fall, they look at you with pity and ask, “But what do you REALLY do to make money?”

So, you’re a VP of gawd knows what of a major music company now playing in a minor key and minor league- and who cares?

And, seriously now, what does a music contract really mean?

Instant stardom or just part of all the clutter of being on a roster in name only- and only good for ego gratification?

Where’s the beef, where’s the money and who fucking cares about Jimmy Iovine, L.A. Reid or any of their ilk?

At least, Simon Cowell- bless his cotton socks and manitties- is finally a daddy now and his PR machinery for managing this incredible feat has gone wild.

Plus, if not for him, we wouldn’t have those five male Kardashianans he christened One Direction- and just listen to how damn great they are. Please do. Please.

While Cowell trudges on with new baby cradled in his arms, never ever will there be another Ahmet Ertegun, a Chris Blackwell, a Jac Holzman etc as executives who once might have been music guys and joined a record label for all the right reasons have either left or been sucked into that void of the corporate world.

If still with a music company, would I have sold my pound of flesh to float above it all and stay in that numbed out la la world?

Sure- for the financial security, the free rides, the fawning of underlings, being a groupie and a big swinging dick floating upstream with blinders on in a very small pond.

Were there any strength in a music company?

Mmmm, no- unless being able to stomach dopey VPs- and everyone was a dopey VP was a strength.

It was all bollocks and like being a charter member of the KKK with many traveling around the world to hear rah rah speeches by the Chairman, watch video after video until it was all a blur, listen to some of the worst sell jobs by guys who had, somehow, become execs while, when it came to my turn, that innate ability to sell them on the bullshit of the China dream as the next big music market and conquering Bollywood. Oh, puhleeeze!

What did the other executives do- especially those useless knobs from Head Office and what were their CVs? No one knew.

They just appeared, thanks to some of the worst human resources people around. And who hired THEM? Usually, the Chairman.

These execs swanned around the world attending meetings, music conferences and awards shows, name dropped about meeting Courtney, Chutney, and Bob and Carol, Ted and Alice and demanded “numbers” for any pile of shit that worked for their agendas.

The fact that certain genres of music traveled to the Nought Pole meant nothing to them as they had to hit their sales targets and break new artists and sell their established artists.

It was ALL about numbers which is why Europe was flooded with cheap China and Malaysia-manufactured CDs and once sold to companies like CD-WOW in bulk in order to make those dreaded “numbers”, which, if one thinks about it, is as stupid as buying twitter followers, “likes” on Facebook, “views” of YouTube and “rankings” on Google Search.

It’s all a con to paint a lop-sided picture with reality.

That’s the past to help understand the present and the future- and here is where I come to an abrupt halt: What future and what do music companies actually DO- and do they have the money to do anything?

Apart from ensuring that their “priority acts” are fawned over accompanied by loud sucking noises, what hope in hell is there for new signings to be heard, let alone having a non-recoupable advance?

Right now, a “deal” with any music company usually means a new act giving them everything for nothing- the record, the music videos, the EPKs, the press kits, even the publishing- and, in return, a “very good royalty deal on sales”, which usually means a 100 percent of sweet fuck-all.

Let’s say, out of the kindness of their hearts, an artist is offered 26% royalties on sales and, if the self-funded record sells 200 measly copies, the music company gets 74% of the, er, “profits.”

But with many artists- especially those who have barely made it around the block- blinded by numbers and a fancy Nancy Berry name card, a brain freeze moment happens and one giveth and giveth because of being dazzled by bullshit and where those in “business affairs” run the show.

This is also where music companies totally screw things up for themselves.

Not only do they over-complicate things by wheeling in outdated contracts, they fail by trying to be too damn smart with business partners in other industries who deal with real power brokers- and who have that thing called a budget. B-U-D-G-E-T.

To them, dealing with a music company- like an ad agency or research company or “social media experts”- is a pleasant little distraction from the more weighty problems at hand: “Hey, let’s get those music company people in and listen to them try and shaft us. And let them buy lunch at that new Italian place with the long waiting list.”

What music companies need to do is slap themselves silly and ask what they can offer. Really offer- if anything.

Forget promotion and marketing. Any trained chimpanzee can write out a music company’s marketing plans as these have not changed in two decades.

The catalogue?

Maybe- but a simple licensing deal or even going straight to artist management can be less painless.

What else, what else, what else?

More senseless meetings, emails and paper work that go nowhere except down the toilet?

Naming artists on the roster available for promotions or endorsements or sync deals when one can, again, deal directly with Artist Management, cut out the middle man and save money?

Distributing downloads and making streaming available?

Again, anyone can make direct deals with any platform around today if one is the content provider- and owner.

So, when one sits back and thinks about it, the more worthless music companies become- and with many not even understanding where their worth lies in 2014 and not realizing just how dispensable they are.

What is also forgotten is just how easy it is for OTHER industries to create a better, bigger, smarter and far more solvent- and holistic- entertainment business with music playing an important co-starring role where artists- old and new- receive a fair non-Spotify deal that brings about what’s REALLY missing in music companies today: Trust and Respect, baby.