We’re probably some of the last to notice it here, but 64-year-old Sir Paul McCartney has upped sticks and joined the digital music revolution.
He has left EMI after 45 years and gone to Starbucks’ Hear Music label as its first major signing. Yes, Memory Almost Full, McCartney’s 21st studio album since the Beatles, can be found nestling temptingly alongside the biscotti. As McCartney explained recently to the LA Times:-
I was bored with the old record company’s jaded view…They’re very confused, and they will admit it themselves: that this is a new world, and they’re a little bit at a loss as to what to do. So they’ve got millions of dollars and X budget … for them to come up with boring ways — because they’ve been at it for so long — to what they call ‘market’ it. And I find that all a bit disturbing.
McCartney went on to say that writing, playing and recording albums is all fun, but the interfacing with the record company guys is much less inspiring. [Perhaps they could do with a dose of what Prof Scott Page calls diverse perspectives -- see our earlier post on his book, The Difference.]
My record producer [David Kahne] said the major record labels these days are like dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid. They know it’s going to hit. They don’t know when, they don’t know where it’s coming from. But it’s sort of hit already. With iTunes, and all of that.”
‘Dance Tonight’, McCartney’s latest single, made its worldwide video premier on YouTube.com last month (see below) and is the first of his solo recordings to arrive simultaneously as a download on iTunes. The rest of his solo catalogue will follow over the next few months. McCartney also granted one of just a handful of pre-release interviews to indie-rock site Pitchforkmedia.com, and played to 700 delighted fans in NY City last night at a free, last-minute concert, arranged via a fansite – all further evidence of McCartney’s enthusiasm to embrace the new.
From the Knackered perspective, it will be an interesting test of private equity to see if EMI becomes a more innovative company (in Macca’s terms) if taken over, as anticipated, by Terra Firma Capital Partners. As a listed company, its executives are inevitably focused on the short term requirements of producing smoothly rising profits to satisfy financial analysts. They have manifestly failed in that endeavour. Macca and the Beatles represent perhaps the archetypal creative black swan, and any quarterly forecast will have difficulty accounting for them.
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5 Responses to “macca flees record industry dinosaurs”
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Kino’s Viktor Tsoi
Sir pray why would Le beatles be Black Swans ? Am being thick here.
Surely they are antithetical to that ?
Steady state sellers for the past 4 decades;the A and R man from ..was it HMV who rejected them…. he could have said they were black swans surely after they broke..but not now after this proven record ?
I can see his Mcveganess being a black swan vis whether or not it’ll be a big seller but not the Beatles.
Anyways please enlighten for us the thick.
Sinc.
Simon,
Their original success and its scale was what was meant. My understanding from a George Martin interview I once heard makes this very clear, but I would need to verify my memory before posting. That it was retrospectively predictable is revealed by the universal mirth at the expense of Decca (I think, not HMV), who turned them down. George Martin’s response, as I recall, is much more humble.
There are those who doubt the quality of the Beatles. I can’t say I enjoyed them so much when growing up. But I’m with Howard Goodall on their ability and influence. Perhaps its just situational, aka old age. I also need to get over myself and go and buy a copy of Sgt Pepper’s in spite of all this hype.
And just when EMI have started offering DRM-free downloads via iTunes. I guess rejecting Digital Restrictions Management is only one step along the path to out-of-the-box thinking.
It’s interesting to compare and contrast with Nine Inch Nails’ latest release and the accompanying marketing campaign:
And the link for the above quote (sorry – not functioning properly today!):
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/403-year-zero-project-the-way-a-viral-campaign-should-be-run
Sir i see and yes agree of course.
Decca was it.
Ah yes Dick Rowe.
Surely a bit of digging would uncover the personage who passed on that silly little childs book Harry Potter !
Off to the Yukon Sunday for new work.
Sinc. and thanks for replying