Private equity & music

[hodad]

Might be food for thought. The link is accessible to all.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/...e_code=1.dk0.u_LS.92SOTEavt7Pb&smid=url-share

 

[fallout]

What the difference between "private equity" and what the record companies have been doing in decades past? Sounds like the same old story.

Money and the fact the music (particularly pop music) hit a dead end long ago bring us to this point.

 

[hodad]

What the difference between "private equity" and what the record companies have been doing in decades past?

Record companies certainly pushed it with the reissue/remaster thing, but the one thing record companies generally have is people who cared about music--even if that became less common over time. Private equity is about maximizing profits. Period. Having people running a business who don't actually give a sh!t about their product is not a positive IMO.

 

[cyrano]

For the little time I spent in the business, I can't say I ever met someone who loved music. They were perhaps fond of jazz and everyone had multiple stereo systems at home and in the office. But when it came down to business, they simply didn't care about the "product".

I was a "talent hunter" for a short while. Until I realised they didn't want the "talent". All they wanted was to keep the competition from signing up that artist. Just in case.

The musicians had the impression the company would help them. That also wasn't true. More often than not, the company put the artists in debt. And there was no way to avoid that debt, as it was the company who made all sorts of weird decisions. Like time in an expensive studio for a beginning punk band.

It took me several months to figure out how that job was really going. I left the business. The pay wasn't too bad. It was weekend work, so I could do it while I was in military service. And getting a lot of vinyl for free was nice too. Everything else sucked and made me feel dirty. Beware of the glitter. It's there to blind you.

I also signed studios. Same story. One of the studios burnt down. He was lucky, as the insurance paid a nice sum and the fire ended his contract. After the building's resurrection, he started selling wine. He was one of the very few who had a good lawyer. But the company's lawyers were better.

 

[fallout]

Record companies certainly pushed it with the reissue/remaster thing, but the one thing record companies generally have is people who cared about music--even if that became less common over time.

That's debatable, certainly by the 90s record companies weren't filled with people who cared about music, at least that was my experience. Radio homogenization in the 90s and file sharing didn't help.

Private equity is about maximizing profits. Period. Having people running a business who don't actually give a sh!t about their product is not a positive IMO.

Record companies and investors were always about maximizing profits. Things just got more desperate (and music more bland) as times changed.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am not as involved as some here, but from the outside it appears that the recent trend is for artists to cash out or monetize their record catalog while still alive. There were a few isolated examples of this in the past but now the sharp pencil crowd have joined the party to grow the business and extract a slice.

JR