EMI / Guy Hands

I remember his brother, Jazz.

this would make me lose my dinner if I was signed to EMI, but why? The ide of bringing the consumer "to" the music, rather than doing the traditional "make adverts", "do tours", "issue press statements" type of "done to death" promotional activity, would make the struggling artist happier that he or she was less likely to get ignored in the rush to publicise Robbie, for example.

HAving said that, Mr Hands does seem like the 'bloke down the pub" with half an opinion about where things are going wrong, but not so much how to do it right?

totally- like his saying that focus groups are how they're gonna out of this mess- er care to elaborate on that, Guy?

Saying "these people are following an outdated business model" is private equity speak for "I am about to sack 10% of the workforce to make the balance sheet look better".

One third of the workforce, surely.

haha matt dc otm

EMI have been spectacularly clueless in picking new artists over the years...

Too many "artists past their peak"
A whole bunch of "random picks"
and a side order of "someone's mate"

Robbie, presumably, was a 'cheap at the time' ex-boyband solo artist.
Coldplay, a random one that came good
Radiohead, signed back in the 'good old days' where they had half a clue.

If you were an unsigned artist, of course you'd love to be on EMI. One of the biggest names historically, alongside the Beatles, blah de blah. But it's all gone folks!

Last year, who had the most hits for them? Probably the Sex Pistols.

I've been saying for years that EMI is fucked - I was on their promo list for a while, around the time X&Y came out, and about a year before that too, and the stuff they were hawking was dreadful 90% of the time, plus they were hawking it badly. Having taken a cheque from them for writing sleevenotes on an Embrace compilation, and just seeing how sloppy some of their work has been, I'm not surprised by any of this at all. Whether Mr Jazz Hands will make a difference or not, I don't know, but I can't see them getting worse.

Actually it was Lily Allen, with an album which had been released the previous year.

Anyway, EMI have no one to blame but themselves. The world - the model for marketing and distributing music - was changing but they clung to the tried and tested nurse for fear of something new. The old men pocketed their bonuses and failed to give both their established acts and new acts the support and marketing base they needed (and I'm a monkey's uncle if Warner, Sony/BMG and Universal, in ascending share price order, don't similarly crash in the foreseeable future).

Mind you, EMI were blinkered even in the nineties - "The Millennium Prayer" may have been crap but it was also 1999's second biggest selling single, and instead of being economically astute EMI decided to be the Cool Police and showed Cliff the door. Now they try to survive on the meagre scraps of profit from Cliff, Phil Collins and Spice Girls compilations.

Note also in the distant past the stupid cold feet that EMI got when they jettisoned the Pistols at the end of '76. Result - EMI ended up with no major punk band and had to depend on Cliff and the Beatles back catalogue for fully half a decade.

I doubt whether they've ever really had a clue.

Possibly not, but the 'scene' was vibrant enough that the people at the sharp end that wanted to keep the Pistols got on and signed a lot of punk/new wave/post... acts (good for the compilations they make now, if nothing else)...

If Radiohead and Robbie leg it, I can see why: Current set-up seems to be "oh god I've got to promote Beth Orton/Badlydrawn, I'm being punished for my sins, how do I get back on the Robbie project?", so if that seems to be happening less, they are naturally going to want to flounce off. RHead because they have ideas of their own, Rob because he'd like some time off for a long while too.

It would not surprise me if their current 'sharp end' consisted of near-work experience people with surnames suspiciously like the board's.

It would not surprise me if their current 'sharp end' consisted of near-work experience people with surnames suspiciously like the board's.

-- Mark G, Tuesday, January 15, 2008 9:46 AM (27 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

growth phenomenon amirite embittered music hacks?

This will end well...

EMI set to take corporate world for a spin

By Martin Arnold and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson

Published: January 15 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 15 2008 02:00

The next Coldplay album could be brought to you by Sudafed, under plans being unveiled by Guy Hands today to boost EMI's flagging earnings with corporate sponsorship.

The Terra Firma chief executive told the FT his private equity group's plan for EMI would include several new ways of making money for artists.

"Football teams have very distinct corporate sponsorship. Why shouldn't some of the leading bands have the same sort of relationships?"

As an example, he said EMI could help bands who would not make it on the international stage find local sponsors who want to break into the student market.

Mr Hands will today present staff and artists' managers with plans to cut £200m of costs at the struggling music group.

He dismissed outsiders' claims that his purchase could face financial trouble. Citigroup - which financed the £4bn EMI deal - had agreed for his buy-out fund to put £200m of extra equity into the company last year, he said, and Terra Firma had raised £250m of cash from co-investors in its funds in the past week.

The extra equity allowed Citigroup to reduce its debt exposure to the deal from £2.7bn to £2.5bn. The co-investor fundraising has re-duced Terra Firma's equity stake from £1.5bn to £1.25bn, still a large share of its latest £3.7bn fund, and raised money for restructuring and acquisitions.

"From a financial point of view, EMI is in an extremely strong position, and frankly is in the strongest position it has been for a long time," Mr Hands said.

Terra Firma has agreed "unlimited cure rights" with Citigroup, giving it more flexibility on financial covenants by counting any fresh equity it puts into EMI as operating profit until 2010. Terra Firma expects returns on EMI to be between 30 per cent and 35 per cent a year over the course of its five-to-eight year investment.

When he reveals plans to cut 1,500-2,000 jobs - a third of EMI staff - Mr Hands will also present a vision of how to tackle the challenges of the internet era.

The Terra Firma boss dismissed claims that artists would suffer, arguing he was doing what musicians and their managers have long called for.

EMI's marketing budget will shrink from over 20 per cent of total spending to 12 to 15 per cent. But Mr Hands plans to boost spending on digital marketing.

Acquisitions will probably focus on EMI's more stable music publishing business.

But Mr Hands plans to boost spending on digital marketing

oh joy.
more promo mp3 mailouts.

I remember his brother, Jazz.

That's the funniest thing I've ever read on ILM.

Why not just let go of Beth Orton and Badly Drawn Boy? They've long since had their commercial and artistic day and probably would be better off marketing and distributing their own music online.

Why sign Robbie for £80 million when they knew there was no earthly hope of that being recouped?

Focus groups are historically a dud. In 1962 focus groups would have said no to scruffy long-haired Beatles and yes to more Black and White Minstrels and trad jazz.

EMI going tits up or dying trying not to can only be good for fans of music or lulz. I'm really looking forward to 18 months of heartbreaking news stories about the death of the Music Industry. I don't remember the break-up of the UK's manufacturing base being covered in these terms. Also every time this story's been on the news for the last couple of days I get hoarse from shouting at the telly pointing out the R. Williams' career has been tailspinning for a while now, without the nasty man taking his ridiculous advances away having anything to do with it.

I like Beth and Damon. But yeah.

while the new music from EMI is often pants (was I the only one to get multiple copies of the very expensively packaged promos by the dreary Tiny Dancers), they are sitting on some of the best archives in the world, eg. the ever excellent $tateside reissue label.

so, i genuinely hope that part of the beast is not shelved as that would be a blow to my funk.

Oh all that is making the money, so that's bound to continue.

Why not just let go of Beth Orton and Badly Drawn Boy? They've long since had their commercial and artistic day and probably would be better off marketing and distributing their own music online.

with orton i wonder if she's ever recouped tbh. maybe through licensing.

will coldplay pull the ultimate radiohead rip-off, is a question. they probably have numerous albums to deliver first, serves 'em for being lazy.

Serves Coldplay right for sticking to the three-year album/tour/record new album schedule which record company contracts now routinely stipulate.

with orton i wonder if she's ever recouped tbh. maybe through licensing.

I can't imagine she cost them a whole lot, to be honest. Did she need an advance?

has emi squeezed a 'best of' out of coldplay yet? three albums seems to bee enough with some acts.

Somebody on the breakfast news was quoting some lolworthy shit about flowers and candles this morning and it occurred to me that not only do I not have a clue what any of the non-Chris Martin members of Coldplay are called, but I wouldn't even recognise them if they were playing on a big stage behind Chris Martin.

has emi squeezed a 'best of' out of coldplay yet? three albums seems to bee enough with some acts.

this crimbo they packaged 2 albums+DVD into a boxset with no new extra material. then there was the 7" singles boxset last year (?).
i'd say they have squeezed a fair bit considering the amount of material so far.

The rest of Coldplay are Don Lockwood (guitar), Lina Lamont (bass) and Cosmo Brown (drums).

Surely the premature Best Of only comes out when the record company know the audience only wants to hear the famous stuff, that no one is going to buy an album of new material and both sides want to call it an 'album' to fulfil a contractual obligation?

(ie doesn't really apply to Coldplay, probably does to, ooh, The Strokes)

Or the Spice Girls.

With the token crap new track so that contractually it counts as a "new album."

The rest of Coldplay are Jim Packwood (guitar), B.G. Grimes (bass) and Gary Miller (drums).

xpost timing! Ah no matter, who knows who they are? Not me for a kickov.

The Strokes have more than 6 hits? Who knew!

You're pulling my leg, Dingbod. Cosmo Brown was the starting Turnbuckle for the East St Louis Phlegmatics during the 2001/2 season. Scored a great pipecock against the Arkansas Chuggabugs, as I recall.

Somebody on the breakfast news was quoting some lolworthy shit about flowers and candles this morning

'flowers & candles' often = code for druqs expenses

Yeah, but this is Coldplay so I took him at his word.

The Strokes have more than 6 hits? Who knew!

Libertines released Greatest Hits album drawing upon 2 albums' worth of material.

The other three members of Coldplay are Shadrach (guitar), Meshach (bass) and Abednego (drums).

Libertines released Greatest Hits album drawing upon 2 albums' worth of material.

Something's got to pay for the flowers and candles.

I just checked: Strokes 8 hits, Libs 6.

xxp: Coldplay is one person, dummy.

xxp: Coldplay is one dummy, person.

xxp: dummy is one person, Coldplay.

What, like Ray Alan and Lord Charles?

and their big hits, "Yerrow" and "Truggle"

Released on their own Silly Arse imprint.

Coldplay's hits;

35 Coldplay Shiver Mar 2000 Notes
4 Coldplay Yellow Jul 2000
10 Coldplay Trouble Nov 2000
2 Coldplay In My Place Aug 2002
10 Coldplay The Scientist Nov 2002
9 Coldplay Clocks Apr 2003
2 Coldplay Speed Of Sound Jun 2005
4 Coldplay Fix You Sep 2005
10 Coldplay Talk Dec 2005
37 Coldplay Fix You (re-entry) Jan 2006

Obviously can't have Fix You twice, so stick on early pre-fame singles (2), plus Clocks trance remix and two new songs; hey presto, 14 tracks.

Hang on, what happened to "God put a smile on your face"?

Never an actual single.

They're to be commended, I feel, for not overdoing the singles from each album. 3 is a healthy number, I feel.

I'd quite like to hear a Coldplay cover of "Make 'Em Laugh" actually.

well, it means i've only heard 9 coldplay songs, which is some kind of a result.

xpostt

My mole tells me that some of the acts to be dropped from EMI have already been informed; one UK indie band certainly knew about it yesterday.

guess The Departure aren't going to get their second album out then

They could always burn some CDs themselves and place them straight in the MVE bargain racks, thereby cutting out the middleman.

Both Louis J@gger and Gomez gone in one week?

which all reminds me, i wonder if that Athlete album last year even covered costs with the constant Dreary O Leary plugging on Radio 2 ?
thats gotta be the way forward, 'sponsorship' by on-board Radio DJs who are fans.
payola in reverse.

I'll be sorry if Athlete are culled, as I thought that last album was actually rather good: a definite case of an Album I Rate from a Genre I Hate.

they are pretty solid i'd say.
they have a healthy following dont they ?
anyway, lets speculate away, well at least until the posts start appearing on various official myspace pages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musicians_signed_to_EMI

Annie Lennox was dropped, so says yahoo...

where's those damn maracas?

Heaven needed a self important oh where's Dom when you needim?

"jazz hands" : http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/inthenews/0,,2241108,00.html

And she's not even signed to EMI!

From "ShowbizSpy..."

Singer Annie Lennox has been dropped by her record label — in what she’s called a shocking snub and a “kick in the teeth”.

The “No More I Love You’s” star, 53, was left shocked when her label, Sony BMG suddenly began ignoring her weeks before her contract was due to expire.

The former Eurythmics singer - one of the most successful female artists ever - has been hit hard by the shabby treatment. She said: “They totally ignored me. It was bizarre, a kick in the teeth.

“They didn’t even pick up phone calls or emails for three weeks. I’m trying to find out what’s behind it. Probably a good thing that I’m no longer with them - mild understatement. Unless it’s them trying to tell me something… Hello!”

Annie - whose last album reached number in the UK chart last October, added to Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper: “It feels like I’m spent, as if I’ve completely run out of energy. I’m now out of contract with Sony BMG.

“I’m going to take my time over the coming months to figure out what to do with this freedom.”

One of her plans is a clear-out and charity sale of possessions on eBay. Annie said: “It’ll be a great big jumble sale.”

(I like how they left a gap for the album's chart position, to be filled in when they found out...)

123? 76?

Well, to be fair, it was number 7 in October 2007.

That'll teach her to rant about Radiohead-style downloading!

Perhaps it'll also teach Radio 2 to play music its listeners actually like.

Erm, reaching the end of your contract isn't exactly being dropped, is it?

The “No More I Love You’s” star

reads really strange, this sort of description.

"The 'Walking On Broken Glass' star" weirder/less weird?

"The "Why" star" seems about right.

There must be a tax bill playing with her heart.

Taxcrime

used to seeing 'the X star' for actors, not so much for recording artistes

At least they didn't call her the 'Diva' diva.

Bet she's kicking herself for turning down Dancing On Ice.

At least they didn't call her the 'Diva' diva.

-- Matt DC, Tuesday, January 15, 2008 3:25 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

they shoulda, that's good! </ smash hits reader>

I don't remember the break-up of the UK's manufacturing base being covered in these terms.

OTMFM

In 1962 focus groups would have said no to scruffy long-haired Beatles and yes to more Black and White Minstrels and trad jazz.

OTM... so much so, that I quoted it to Boy George during this afternoon's Grumpy Old Man bitch-fest of an interview. (He agreed.)

OH NOES NOT THE VERVE ON STRIKE

Let's hope Blue Mink don't decide to withhold their next album too.

what will happen to Mute Records?

...that's actually a very good question.

And Warp?

KENNY LARKIN GOES ON STRIKE

what will happen to Mute Records?

don't they make scadloads of money? i'm sure they'll be fine...

BOYD RICE GOES ON STRIKE

Rolling Stones not leaving, but releasing their next album on another label (???)

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/17b24080-c487-11dc-a474-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=e8477cc4-c820-11db-b0dc-000b5df10621.html

It's a soundtrack album, they often go outside the scope of Americal contracts particularly. Witness those Beatles albums on United Artists in the sixties, for "Help" and "A Hard Days Night".

Ah, ok. It's still going to be perceived as this "another blow to EMI" though, even if it technically shouldn't be...

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/01/guy_hands_and_emi.html

He also needs to take a carving knife to the roster. It's full of bands no one has ever heard of (the Sonic Hearts, The Redwalls, Connan and the Mockasins). Or bands everyone thinks are rubbish (Cherish, Fischerspooner, Thunder). Or bands that are simply on the wrong label for what they do (Morning Runner, the Sleepy Jackson). Why, for instance, has EMI got Prinzhorn Dance School, a band described by this hardly reactionary paper as "possibly the least commercially viable group ever signed to a major label"? They should be first out of the door, preferably without a cab fare, and be made to get on their bikes and look for work - in a dance school, making tea, if necessary.

how are mute and warp tied to EMI?

Mute's been taken over by EMI in 2002, but I don't know about Warp

Why, for instance, has EMI got Prinzhorn Dance School,

they do? what's DFA's place in this?

Yeah, that whole article is 99% OTM.

The 1%? Joss Stone. I don't like her that much, but hey she hasn't actually 'flopped' yet.

I'm amazed Fischerspooner are still on a major label.

I'm amazed Fischerspooner are still on a major label.

.. as are fischerspooner ..

have to say, i doubt EMI will be funding any more vanity projects via DFA a la PDS and the Shocking Pinks, i very much doubt both of those paid for the advertising that each album got.
EMI didn't pick up the Pylon reissue in the UK I noticed, so perhaps the changes have already begun to kick in.
The whole EMI/DFA concerns me, as no EMI => t'will be a bugger to pick up the DFA stuff, which is not good.

Pretty hateful, ill-informed comments there about the Bird and the Bee and Joss Stone - yes, Diva Simpson, why don't those Devon plebs get back behind the deli counter where they belong, so that EMI can spend the money saved on hiring even more failed music journalists as PR "consultants"?

Had Div Wimpson, in common with all Grauniad music "writers," actually got off his idle arse and done some basic research, he would know that Joss Stone is currently huge in the States, where her last album didn't tank as it did here, and that the excellent Bird and the Bee (who are signed to Blue Note rather than EMI direct) album has sold pretty well - furthermore, Greg Kurstin, who is one half of B & the B, has written and produced dozens of hits for other artists this past year, including Natasha Bedingfield and Kylie.

The Prinzhorn Dance School/Warp set-up has already been explained.

Really, is it too much to ask that the Grauniad's people actually stop and think about what they're going to write before they write it?

With all this talk about investing more in A&R networks, I presume they've bothered to think about how they'd actually offer any incentive for artists to sign to EMI rather an a n other major label?

I think the living wage is a perfectly decent incentive in itself but investing in A&R networks is the kind of mistake which led to a third of the workforce being made redundant in the first place and considerably more money could be saved by getting rid of all these hangers-on.

In the sixties the major record companies tended to have on average one A&R person on their books and they seemed to do pretty well.

But really the whole operation has to be split into two; one to deal with new artists (and new media), one to administer and maximise the worth of the back catalogue. And new acts should be given realistic help rather than being bestowed with even into half EMI's kingdom if they show even a smidgeon of promise.

"even UNTO half EMI's kingdom"

Isn't Simpson saying that EMI need MORE artists like Joss Stone and The Bird And The Bee - i.e. ones with proven sales or ones who experiment but with clear potential for crossover via licensing...OK that may be wishful thinking re TBATB but if he just threw them in because he thinks they should be bigger than they are than I agree.

i'm not sure why he's so invested in emi's share price really.

It would appear that Slave Blimpson believes that B&B and Joss would be better employed as tilers or plumbers. I'm not sure he's smart enough to get away with extended metaphor.

What's funny is that Dingbod has been posting for several days actually in agreement with the main thrust of the argument.

I do agree with it in principle but he's going for entirely the wrong targets, i.e. just another excuse to slag off a bunch of acts who have sold less than e.g. Daniel O'Donnell.

Ah so basically the same as what I said before.

The main bone of contention (back to Mr Hands now.. You know, if Jazz Summers hadn't got involved I could have continued calling him JazzHands but hey, anyway close bracks carry on) seems to be his lack of 'understanding' of music re his daughter's Lily Allen comment.

I remember a FZappa quote, I'll see if I can find it.

There should be international laws about that kind of people being allowed to own companies producing culture.

As for all the discussion about EMI's mistakes upthread, nobody seems to mention what was probably EMI's biggest mistake: The copy protection. They ended up having people boycotting music they did actually like for several years just because of that stupid technology that didn't protect CDs from being copied, only from being played on certain players.

nope. (xpost to my Zappa non-quote)

Basically:

"In the older days you had old guys who would say "Hey, I don't understand it at all, but maybe the kids do... Let's put it out and see", whereas later on there'd be some hippy dude who would say "Listen, I know what the kids like, and they won't go for this."

So, a return to 'bean counters' does not necessarily kill groundbreaking/experimental stuff.

That's not a defence or crit of MrHand, but who knows...

xpost to Geir pt 1: Oh boy.

Pt2: Well, that's only one facet of their failure to embrace and exploit the downloading market. Which certainly has been mentioned.

Interesting point regarding it though:

My copy of Kevin Ayers' "Whatevershebringswesing" bought in Amsterdam is copy protected. My copy of "Joy of a Toy" bought in Reading does not. Both were clearly made in the same factory.

Seems Europe was the 'test' bed.

I mean, personally I am not the one who is put-off most by it. I play CDs, not mp3 files. And copy protected CDs usually work perfectly on my CD players except a few of them tend to skip a bit on the first track when I play them on my portable.

But generally, they lost a lot of people that way.

"Companies producing culture"!

Yokult?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7196031.stm

How desperate must a record company be to depend on FEEDER for financial security?

They are scarily consistent though (last two albums both got to no 2)

There was an element of the sympathy vote there, though.

Well, maybe but that was the album before those two (last one was a greatest hits, and thesedays hardly anyone gets GH albums into top ten)

Maybe because there are so many of the same ones at five-year intervals - does the world really need another Zep/Beautiful South/Housemartins compilation? They certainly didn't seem to want the Spice Girls one much.

My kids did, I'll tell you that. Not that they've actually played it, funnily enough. It was more the DVD of the hits they were after.

It's a soundtrack album, they often go outside the scope of Americal contracts particularly. Witness those Beatles albums on United Artists in the sixties, for "Help" and "A Hard Days Night".

Only Hard Days Night was released on United Artists in the US. Help! was on Capitol. The latter was assembled in one evening by Dave Dexter, Jr., the Capitol staffer who assembled most of the pre-'67 US Beatles albums (a fascinating/infuriating story covered in detail by Dave Marsh in his brilliant The Beatles' Second Album book).

They are scarily consistent though

This is a double-edged sword innit?

have to admit i didn't know Bowie was on Chrysalis

xpost OK, "Let it Be" was on apple/UA then.

How desperate must a record company be to depend on FEEDER for financial security?

you may not like them marcello but they are pretty damned successful. had you done some actual research yadda yadda zzzz.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8039773.stm

Music giant EMI tripled its earnings over the past year, helped by cost-cutting measures that reportedly caused a near-revolt by its artists.

The company generated underlying earnings of £163m between March 2008 and 2009, against £51m the year before.

It is the first full year EMI has been under the ownership of the private equity group Terra Firma.

In 2008, the new owners shed 2,000 of EMI's 5,500 members of staff worldwide, which saved it £48m this year.

Radiohead exit

Senior members of EMI's board also lost their jobs in the takeover, leading to fears the label would lose its creative edge.

Radiohead, one of the label's biggest acts, left EMI saying the new owners did not understand the music industry.

At the time, Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien said: "It's been taken over by somebody who's never owned a record company before."

The band's lead singer Thom Yorke later claimed music was being "devalued" by the involvement of a private equity firm treating bands "as simply part of their stock".

There were also reports Robbie Williams was refusing to make another album for EMI because he was worried the new management would not know how to promote it properly.

Warning to artists

More change was to come when Guy Hands, the owner of Terra Firma, imposed a new approach towards rewarding artists.

He warned them EMI would no longer promote musicians who demanded big advances on the salaries but did not deliver the hits.

Like other record companies EMI has suffered in recent years because of the decline in sales of CDs.

However, EMI said 35% of its income in the past year was generated by non-physical sales, such as music downloads over the internet.

"There is still a great deal of work to be done to restore EMI to its former greatness," said Elio Leoni-Sceti, who was hired last year as EMI's new chief executive.

He added the group could not afford to become "complacent".

The company said Coldplay's Viva La Vida album was their most successful product, claiming it was the world's best selling album in 2008.

EMI is due to release Robbie Williams' latest album later in this year.

and yet...

Troubled record company EMI is in the news again for all the wrong reasons, as its current owner Terra Firma turns on the bank that financed the £4bn ($6.5bn) takeover.

Private equity dealmaker Guy Hands, fighting to salvage his reputation, thinks Citigroup set him up by not telling him other players had pulled out of the bidding war in 2007.

For its part, Citigroup says it will defend its role in the proceedings "vigorously".

But while the legal battle rages, EMI is still showing its peerless expertise in exploiting the crown jewels of its back catalogue.

(...)

Now, just when long-suffering collectors thought their wallets were safe from further attack, EMI has returned to the fray with two more repackage jobs.

One is a "Christmas pack" containing four of the most acclaimed Beatles albums - Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt Pepper and Abbey Road.

The other is an extremely limited apple-shaped USB drive containing the Beatles' works in MP3 and Flac formats - the only way to obtain the band's music legally as digital files, since none of their songs are available from download sites.

(...)

EMI is not the only record company turning past glories into a present-day revenue stream, although the near-£200 price tag on its Beatles box sets has angered many fans.

But the latest back-catalogue bonanza could be EMI's last big chance to make serious money from its most valuable tunes - in Europe, at least.

At present, record labels have exclusive rights to sell sound recordings in the EU for a period of 50 years. After that, other companies can put out their own editions.

Unless the law is changed, the first Beatles record, Love Me Do, will go out of copyright at the end of 2012.

In April, the European Parliament voted to extend the copyright protection to 70 years, but the move has still to be approved by the European Council.

In the US, the picture is very different. Thanks to a series of overlapping federal and state laws, virtually all sound recordings are subject to legal protection until 2067.

However, multinational record companies would be reluctant to invest the time and effort that went into the Beatles' remastering if they could not be sure of reaping a worldwide return.

No future?

So why is EMI still reliant on music that was recorded in the last century? Why has it not discovered new talents that can reduce its dependence on the archives?

Well, the label does boast the likes of Robbie Williams, Lily Allen and Coldplay on its current roster.

But all those artists were signed before the company was taken over by Guy Hands' private equity firm, Terra Firma, in 2007.

In the two-and-a-half years since the deal was done, EMI has attracted attention in various ways, but musical creativity has not been one of them.

Artists who prided themselves on their originality did not warm to a new boss who was routinely described in profiles as "karaoke-loving".

For his part, Mr Hands took a look at EMI's bottom line and was appalled.

"We discovered that new music over the last 18 months had lost £130m," he told the BBC in January 2008.

"In fact, new music had not been profitable ever since the digital age arrived."

Furniture music

Mr Hands' cost-cutting methods were part of the standard turnaround tactics employed by private equity firms, in their quest to revamp underperforming companies and sell them on.

However, such an approach had never been tried at a record company before - and the results were counter-productive.

Radiohead, the Rolling Stones and even ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney decided they had had enough of EMI, all jumping ship to seek other deals.

"Everybody at EMI had become part of the furniture," Sir Paul said when he left in 2007.

"I'd be a couch, Coldplay are an armchair. Robbie Williams, I dread to think what he was."

But the fundamental problem was that Terra Firma had paid too much for EMI at the height of the private equity boom, making the resulting debt - most of it owed to investment bank Citigroup - unsustainable.

After Citigroup refused to write off £1bn of that debt in exchange for a further cash injection from Mr Hands, relations soured.

That prompted Terra Firma's legal action against the bank - in essence, an attempt to blame Citigroup for the high cost of the EMI deal.

Back at the sharp end of the business, EMI is already running into problems with that Beatles USB stick.

A design fault means that quite a number of the drives have arrived with the apple's stalk snapped off, and disgruntled fans are clamouring for replacements.

The item is starting to look like a metaphor for Terra Firma's acquisition of EMI: something that seemed like a good idea at the time, but rapidly turned into an expensive liability.

Guy Hands didn't even understand the concept of a record company advance *after* Teffa Firma had taken in EMI, had to have it explained to him.

r.williams clearly a stool

poor guy hands, im sure everyone feels sorry for him

guy hands has man arms

Unless the law is changed, the first Beatles record, Love Me Do, will go out of copyright at the end of 2012.

The Mayans were right.

Music group EMI will report it has lost around £1.5bn in the last financial year

See, my theory always was:

that the board sold to Guy Hands et al, to 1) prevent the label/organisation being subsumed into Universal, and becoming a boutique label along with Decca, Polydor, etc., and 2) to have someone who had more money than sense hold the entitlement for a while, and when they've reduced the value of it, buy it back for a pittance, and keep the difference.

http://blogs.news.sky.com/kleinman/Post:59456315-530d-4c17-a013-dea12c839c5b

UPDATE 17:05: EMI has asked me to correct the original version of this post, which said that Madonna was one of the company's artists - she isn't.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12339299

US banking giant Citigroup has taken over the ownership of EMI, the record label where it was the major creditor.

Under the terms of the deal, EMI's debt has been reduced by 65% from £3.4bn to £1.2bn.

In 2007, Citigroup loaned money to Guy Hands' private equity firm Terra Firma to enable it to buy EMI.

But the takeover proved to be a failure, with Terra Firma widely seen as having massively overpaid for the company.

EMI said it would continue under the same management and that it was now completely separate from its previous owner

Citigroup said it would eventually sell EMI.

Bye Guy!

according to various mailouts (CMU basically) there have been rumours that this would happen, thereby allowing Mr Hands to then get funding and buy EMI again for a much reduced price !

UK music firm EMI has said it will sell its recorded music unit for £1.2bn ($1.9bn) to Universal Music.

Reports have suggested that the other half of EMI's business - the lucrative music publishing unit - will go to a Sony-led consortium for more than $2bn.

EMI, with a history dating back to 1897, is home to artists including Coldplay, the Beatles and Pink Floyd.

Citigroup seized ownership of EMI in February after previous owner Terra Firma failed a solvency test.

"I particularly welcome the fact that EMI will once again be owned by people who really do have music in their blood," said Rolling Stones singer Sir Mick Jagger.

The manager of Coldplay also welcomed Universal.

"They have assembled the most talented group of executives in the industry today and their success speaks for itself," Dave Holmes said.

Universal Music is a unit of Vivendi, the French media company.

Troubled history

EMI's labels include Blue Note, Capitol, Parlophone and Virgin Records.

Labels included under the Universal umbrella are Def Jam, Motown, Decca, Island Records, Interscope Records and Polydor Records.

"For me, as an Englishman, EMI was the pre-eminent music company that I grew up with," said Universal Music chairman and chief executive Lucian Grainge. "Its artists and their music provided the soundtrack to my teenage years."

He added: "Universal Music Group is committed to both preserving EMI's cultural heritage and artistic diversity and also investing in its artists and people to grow the company's assets for the future."

In June, EMI said it would launch a strategic review into the future of the business, which it said could result in a sale, share flotation, or a restructuring of its finances.

Private equity firm Terra Firma, led by Guy Hands, bought EMI for £4.2bn in 2007 just before the credit crunch sent the global financial markets into turmoil.

It subsequently admitted that it had overpaid for EMI, and struggled to meet payments on the £2.6bn it had borrowed from Citigroup to fund the deal.

Last year, Terra Firma took Citigroup to court in the US, accusing the bank of tricking it into paying an inflated price for EMI. It lost the case, with a jury ruling in favour of Citigroup.

Boom.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/business/global/universal-takeover-of-emi-music-is-approved.html?hp

Shall we have a whip-round and buy Parlophone?

We could get "ILX has a Bucket" pressed in lim-ed Vinyl!

Annnnd Parlaphone is retired and divvied up:

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/global/5840082/coldplay-david-guetta-go-to-atlantic-records-radiohead-pink-floyd

Under the new structure, Warner Bros. Records will distribute new releases from Damon Albarn, Kylie Minogue, Lily Allen, Bat For Lashes, Eliza Doolittle, Conor Maynard, Gabrielle Aplin, among others, and catalog titles from Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Blur, Gorillaz, Radiohead, Kraftwerk, Supergrass and Sinead O’Connor. Atlantic Records will distribute new releases from three additional artists – Coldplay, Tinie Tempah and, through dance imprint Big Beat, David Guetta.

pobrecito