jimac51
New Member
As for people who really know the business,they are persona non gratae in the new world of the music business. Catalog is there to be exploited,but it seems that they don't want anybody from within to do the exploiting anymore. As Sony swallowed BMG,lots of people "in the know" from both sides were left go. Warner changing their Strategic Marketing division back to Rhino didn't signal a shift back to the old ways of the Foos Brothers as much as it meant,"Hey,there's only a few of us here left,so who cares?" Why doesn't Hip-o Select want to open up their forum anymore-they've got tons of possible projects that could be done-they need to get some dough on the coffers first.Meanwhile,companies like Gotham/Collectables and Collector's Choice are welcome to put out virtually anything they can afford. These projects are in conjunction with the majors,but it's a "Show me the money"proposition from the start. A Best Buy or Wal-Mart exclusive-sure,but these are few and far between and usually are between the artist and the retailer,with the record company left out. There is little incentive anymore for the majors to exploit catalog while potential fresh meat-American Idols for Idle Americans-can make their money immediately on the back of the new artist. Not unlike the movie business,the new artists are fewer and come with more prepackaging than before.It's a bigger gamble with a potentially bigger payoff-something stockholders demand today,not tomorrow. What these new music execs miss is something very important in that Herb Alpert/Dave Koz interview discussed in another forum-look how long it took A&M to finally get Carpenters to make it big. But when it did-WOW-a major building block to the house of A&M. And talk about exploiting a catalog for decades...But these new guys can't wait for the second album,let alone a second single, and they don't see a catalog with any importance thirty years down the road. Mac
