Epic Ghost Of A Chance

[Lazz]

Amanda Ghost (“The Unsung hero of British Music” - The Independent) is the new president of Epic Records.

"As well as working with artists signed to Epic," - and that includes Franz Ferdinand, Jennifer Lopez, Editors, Sade, Ozzy Osbourne, etcetera.... "she plans to continue her writing/production partnerships with Ian Dench, Jack Splash, Stargate, the Rural and FutureCut, and will also continue to work with artists Hugo Chakra and Scott McFarnon."

WTF does it all mean ?

Does the woman who wrote the chorus to James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" have what it takes to be a label executive ?

"... just like hiring lawyers turned out to be a fallacious solution to record business problems, hiring inexperienced songwriters/failed performers is no better solution. A good songwriter is a lousy businessman. A failed artist has no blueprint for what it takes to make it." says Bob Lefsetz.

It's certainly an odd choice.

So what does it signify ?

What's going on ?

[Retrosaurus Rex]

I'm reminded of a situation at a company I used to work for. We were going thru an ownership transition, and looking forward to moving the facility, which promised to be a significant logistical challenge. Also, our major clients were divisions of the company that formerly owned our company, and changes put in place by the new owner had a negative impact on the way we bent over backward (or forward, sometimes...) for these clients, and with contract time coming it was a clear concern that some business would be lost. In this environment the VP announced that he was creating the position of production manager to oversee the day-to-day business of our facility. The guy he hired was a nice guy, but kind of a buffoon. My analysis at the time was that the VP wanted to make sure someone was available to walk the plank when and if we lost a major client. I got a better offer in the meantime, so I wasn't around a year later, but I learned from friends I kept in touch with that when we did, in fact, lose that contract, the production manager was one of the first have his head handed to him in a banker's box. Most of the others had been with the company under the previous ownership. Later I went back to that company in a better position that the one I had left.

I have no idea whether Amanda Ghost is a buffoon, and I don't want to paint her with that brush, but I'll leave it to the gentle reader to identify any other parallels there may be between my post and Lazz'...

[Chokai]

Its great news for independents. Year on year the majors are losing their foothold on sales, dumping more money into live performance and hiking up the prices of their major signings gigs to offset poor sales, only this is having the opposite effect as ticket prices are getting so high everyone prefers the smaller venues a lesser known bands.

What Lazz has mentioned above is the tip of the iceberg as majors look towards other means to move their businesses forwards, only as usual its a poor decision and a poor attempt at making the record labels more music orientated.

Its a good era for music, and hopefully its going to get better.