No advances. That's the future. Just a straight 50/50 split.
Virgin making a deal with Korn reminds me of their deal with Courtney Love. Take a has-been, give them a bunch of cash and...take the write-off?
It's about growing new acts. Which Virgin seems unable to do. So, they're buying the cast-offs of Sony. Which is smart enough not to pay Bruce Springsteen what he wants. I'd tell the Boss to take a hike. Yup, take your marginal new music to a new label that has no investment in you, that won't promote you after your record stalls, since they've got no CATALOG! If I were Andy Lack I'd tell Bruce he'd be LUCKY to re-sign with Columbia. Hell, maybe play Morris Levy and threaten NOT to work the catalog if he doesn't re-up.
I mean the major labels deserve to be whipping boys, but so do the old acts. They're just not in the same place in life. They're not frustrated, they don't NEED IT, and therefore they record lame new music, that their aging audience doesn't want to be associated with, at least not in vast numbers. Oh, the old fans want to go to the gig, to relive their youth, but buy a new record that stinks (and oldsters are value CONSCIOUS) by an act that either looks tired or has had so much plastic surgery you can't identify with them?
It's a two way street. If you want the big advances you've got to deliver music that will sell. That's entertainment...what have you done for me LATELY? The fact that you were big in the seventies doesn't help me today, I can't move hundreds of thousands of Gremlins.
If these acts truly believed in themselves, they'd forgo the big advances for an equal share of the upside. I mean who wants to invest in somebody who doesn't believe in THEMSELVES?
Maybe this would force them to make good music. Not thinking they've got the money in the bank anyway. I mean that's the root of all great art, HUNGER! Whether it be for sex, money or...
As for Virgin doing an all-in-one deal with Korn, let me ask you, who do you trust less, the label's accounting or the band's?
I mean at least there are physical goods, CDs, produced and shipped and ultimately sold by legitimate businesses. I want to trust the count from the guy selling t-shirts? Hell, the whole live business is predicated on stealing. With the acts driving such heinous deals that promoters are FORCED to scam and steal. THIS is where you want to look for revenue?
The labels should do what they do best. Record and distribute music.
Then again, you don't have to be a major label to do this anymore. And, if you make a deal with Howard Kaufman, you can get a royalty rate far greater than the one a major label will deliver. That's why Jimmy Buffett put out his own records. Until he wanted a HIT, THEN he went back to a major label.
If you need marketing, the major is where you belong, that's what the machine can deliver.
But you only need marketing if you're gonna HAVE a hit. Is Korn gonna have another hit? Unless it's a cover of Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!", I doubt it.
A pox on all of them but Andy Lack. Greedy man of the people Bruce Springsteen. Matt and Munns who reinvented Virgin in New York as a financial sinkhole. And Korn... Then again, Virgin is paying them what they want. Somewhere, Jeff Kwatinetz is laughing.
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