Entertainment For Lively Minds
EMI music swallowed by Universal
I may have missed commentary on this round here, but have we noticed and do we care that EMI Music just got swallowed by Universal, or may be well on the way to being swallowed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/11/universal-music-acquisiti...
Hardly surprising I suppose after falling into the hands of venture capitalists and the run of misery they've had in the face of the storms faced by the industry.
Or is it just being nostalgic for something that is well past it's use-by date (as per podcasts of the recent past) ? It seems like it's following Thatcher's 'service economy', reaching it's logical conclusion much like the freelance IT industry, where the music industry are the agencies and facilities people, and the content creators work through/for them.
- More from Harold Holt.
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Pop has eaten itself.
I already have all the music I'll ever need, I'm not very interested in new artists, I never download anything and I don't have an ipod so, from a personal point of view, I don't really care if there are such things as record companies anymore. I'm naturally sympathetic to people whose jobs are on the line but, let's face it, rock and roll as a creative force is long dead and the party's well and truly over.
New
As a voracious consumer of music new and old, I just don't see that the creativity is dead. Surely, in order to stand out from the crowd and anything that had already been made, ever more creative skills are required. I'm not sure that we really need large record companies anymore but if I had to choose between new or old then I'd always go for new.
I care.
I just don't see a music industry with one huge player, one medium and one small (Universal, Sony, Warner) as healthy competition or to the benefit of consumers.
I doubt there will be a successful legal challenge to this deal but in most other industries there would be an outcry about it.
I know there will be a few posts along the lines of "record companies are evil - let them rot" but I don't see any positive in making a bad situation worse.
I agree...
...that in any other industry, there would be absolute uproar.
I can't believe there has been only a few whimpers by music magazines/music biz people.
The Word's resident music business expert, Eamonn Forde in the Guardian, if you've not seen it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/nov/11/emi-demise-british...
How many do you need for competition, exactly?
Both Universal and Sony will end up being crushed by Apple anyway, won't they?
In terms of distribution, Apple will probably become
Sonyversal's prime delivery channel but, unless Apple start directly signing artists and releasing albums then I think there'll always be a need for record companies.
Having said that, all Apple need to do is put an 'Upload To iTunes Store' button on Garageband and Logic, together with a standardised licensing and distribution agreement (in the same way as you blindly click [Accept] when you install a new bit of software) and the job's a good 'un. ;-)
I care
Mainly because it has a direct impact on me and a lot of people I know. There are loads of good people there who care passionately about music and the artists they represent.
Like so much of UK industry in the last 30 years
Destroyed by mediocre management and the City - slash, burn, plunder, line your pockets and then fuck off
Its a miracle there are ANY companies above micro-size left in beneficial British ownership outside the financial sector and THEY just took billions and billions off us to stay in business.
We've been sold out by witless Sloane ranger scumbags. Makes me very angry
Does this mean...
...we'll get 'Deluxe Editions' of the Beatles albums?
(Even I can't tell if I'm being glib or serious here...)
The very act of adding anything to Beatles albums...
cheapens them. They need nothing more.
We've had this before Patrick!
...and I stand firm in my view that both Revolver & Sgt Pepper would be significantly enhanced - nay, MADE COMPLETE - by the addition of the Paperback Writer/Rain and Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane singles respectively!
What it surely DOES mean, Paolo...
...is that there'll be CD/DVD catalogue sets of EMI artists utilising Universal's all-you-can-eat BBC tie-in deal (the product of a million quid to the BBC a few years back) eg. best-ofs with a DVD of BBC TV performances attached (like Sioxsie and The Mission and no doubt many others) or multiple disc 'At The BBC' CD + DVD sets like the recent Richard Thompson set and the Sandy Denny set before it. Sets like that, using TV video content, would be prohibitive to license if it were anyone else.
I doubt you'll get anything involving Pink Floyd or the Beatles that you wouldn't have got with EMI as it was, because those acts appear to wield their own special vetos...
Still, we might now get to see Jethro Tull's splendid 1977 'Sight & Sound In Concert' officially on CD/DVD at last.