EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

[lerxstcat]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

The problem with that is that people don't always walk in knowing what they want; they like to browse, look at the CD covers, read a few pages where THEY choose to open the book. Sure, it may work for online sales, but brick and mortar shops need the tactile and visual appeal to keep going.

Would you shop a guitar store that only had cardboard mockups? "Well that's what it looks like, and I gar-on-TEE it plays rill GEWD, so ya want I order ya one?"

[Svart]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

that's why I stick to Jacksons, that way I know what I'll get [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[pro-fusion]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

Iron Maiden is now on Sony, and has been since Bruce and Adrian rejoined.

The last album they did for EMI was, I think, Fear of the Dark. The two albums with Blaze singing were released by CMC with BMG distribution, weren't they?

[pro-fusion]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

Books and music retailing are two very different animals. Brick and mortar bookstores are actually a growing business, I believe, albeit one dominated by a few large players. Lerxst has it right--for book lovers, the bookstore is a very tactile browsing experience, which is one reason that the online sellers haven't completely overwhelmed that market. My wife buys a huge number of books, and for her, spending a couple of hours browsing at the bookstore is the equivalent to me spending a couple of hours at the used guitar store--an intoxicating experience.

But music is different--most music stores don't allow you to hear everything in the store before you decide to buy, and the reduced size of cd album covers has taken a lot of the tactile/visual pleasure away that used to be present when you went to the record store to look at...records! Remember those? [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

I do most of my 'research' online by downloading a couple of tracks or visiting a band's site listening to samples--if I like it, I can always find it online, whereas even the best record stores have only a certain amount of indie metal in stock. Lots of copies of the latest Britney album, though...

[RacerX]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

Originally posted by pro-fusion:
Iron Maiden is now on Sony, and has been since Bruce and Adrian rejoined.

The last album they did for EMI was, I think, Fear of the Dark ?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Almost. EMI released everything from 1980 (Iron Maiden) to 1993 (A Real Dead One). FotD was '92.
EMI also did Rock In Rio (2002).

[VitaminG]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

'sfunny, I just checked the back sleeves of Brave New World and Dance of Death, and both say that the copyright material is owned by Iron Maiden Holdings Ltd under exclusive licence to EMI Records Ltd.

[Newc]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

AFAIK Steve Harris made it a point to retain all of Iron Maiden's material under their own holding company and license it out to the label, so that in the event of a breakup with the label (or the label collapsed) the band retained the music - no label, no contract, so the music goes with the band while the label sinks instead of the band sinking with the label as most bands did.

Back in 86 when CDs first came out, they were $50 each (the first music CD was Michael Jackson's 'Thriller', IIRC). Madonna, Michael, and a few other "top of the pops" groups had them and they were all $50 each. Nearly 20 years later (18 actually), they have only reduced in price by half at best for a new release. While the recording time has increased over cassette and vinyl, not many acts take advantage of that; they still cling to the 10-12 songs/60-minutes-max limit.
The "official" word back then was that CDs would replace vinyl and tapes simply because it costs so little to manufacture them, however, you can't tell it by the prices in the stores.

I think the big labels will have to hook up with movie studios to stay afloat, or they'll have to drop down to being distribution sources for underground/independant labels/artists who record at home.
They better do something before AOL buys them all up and all we have for entertainment providers are ClearChannel and AOL [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Newc

[pro-fusion]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

I know that Maiden is on Sony in the USA. Maybe they are on EMI in Europe??

Actually, they were originally on Capitol Records in the USA, which was bought out by EMI some time during the '80s.

Either way, Steve Harris is a very smart man to have retained the rights to the masters. Zappa did that, and he made a very nice chunk o' change over the years licensing them. He sold his masters off to Ryko just before he died, which provided a very nice 7-figure sum for Gail and the kids to live on.

[jgcable]

Re: EMI cutting 1500 Employees, 1/5 of Artists

The f'd up thing about it is that it is much cheaper to mass produce CD's yet the price for one is more than an album or cassette used to be.
The record companies cry about no profits because downloading is killing them and then in their next sentence they are telling you to tune into Cribs and see the multimillion dollar mansions and the several 100K cars that all these no talent pop stars are owning and driving. They are laughing all the way to the bank. $18.00 for a CD that cost next to nothing to make and distribute. It also costs virtually nothing to record anymore either. They pay the studios and the session players squat and most of the time the advertisers pickup alot of the tab for promotion and tours so they can all kiss my ass. I hope more of them fold up. Maybe then we can afford to go to concerts and buy actual CD's again.