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- Behind the music: What the Citigroup takeover means for EMI
Nobody expects Citigroup to hold on to EMI, but its fate will affect artists and songwriters on the major label's roster
When news broke that US investment bank Citigroup had taken control of EMI yesterday, many were quick to point out that the UK no longer has a major label. Perhaps more important, especially for the artists and songwriters on EMI, is the question of what Citigroup plans to do with the label. What does the takeover mean for the artists and songwriters on its roster, and the British music industry?
When Terra Firma bought the company in 2007, many artists voiced concerns about having a private equity firm in charge of their careers. Guy Hands, the firm's owner, didn't help the situation by implying he didn't understand that running a music company is different from running any other. Some artists, including Radiohead and the Rolling Stones, left the label in protest (never mind that outside businesses have been buying record labels for decades – Canadian drinks company Seagram bought Polygram from electronics giant Philips in 1998, while Universal is owned by Vivendi).
While EMI sources confirmed that Hands didn't know much about the music industry, they conceded he at least acknowledged the fact and was open to learn. And perhaps this is why, while Hands and Citigroup were battling it out in court, EMI appears to have turned into arguably the most progressive of the major labels when it comes to artist relationships. While Warner Music Group (WMG) only signs artists to 360-degree deals that will give the label a share of all income, EMI has offered artists such as I Am Kloot and Hadouken! a selection of services from which to pick, allowing them to create a tailor-made partnership with the label. Robbie Williams's latest deal was also constructed in this way. And though his manager, Tim Clark, compared Hands to a plantation owner soon after the takeover, he later said he wouldn't discount the possibility of Williams re-signing to EMI once his deal expired. Even Pink Floyd recently concluded a new deal with the label, despite having previously taken it to court.
It doesn't look like Citigroup will force the label to change the way it operates. However, no one thinks Citigroup will hold on to it. There has been speculation that WMG and BMG Rights Management/KKR are interested in buying it – or at least part of it (EMI consists of the record label – including subsidiaries such as Parlophone and Virgin – and EMI Publishing, which owns copyrights for songs). They may want to consider that some of the most lucrative master recording copyrights will soon expire. The Beatles' Love Me Do was recorded in 1962 and, according to UK law, master recording copyrights run out after 50 years.
If Warner gets in the running, it may encounter problems from the European Commission, as it would mean a further concentration in the music market if the number of major labels were to be reduced to three. EMI being bought by another label would have both pros and cons. Another label would understand the way the music business works, but it would also, impose its own way of working as well as consolidate and reduce the number of staff.
I have experienced what happens when music companies merge. I signed to BMG Publishing, which ended up being bought by Universal. Many of the people I had dealt with at BMG were sacked, and the people taking over were overwhelmed by the amount of songwriters and catalogues they had to oversee. Record labels and publishers rely heavily on personal relationships. They have to be able to deal with artists and songwriters, who are often sensitive and temperamental – as Hands found out.
After the Terra Firma takeover EMI managed to turn a precarious situation around, preventing a mass-exodus of artists and songwriters and even making itself attractive to artists such as Tinie Tempah who were looking to sign with a major. EMI recently announced that it will invest more in A&R, but will it be able to continue operating the way it has for the last few years? Its fate lies in the hands of an American bank whose only concern is who will pay the most to take the company off its hands.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Scene and heard: Necromantic rock
A reaction to the less savoury elements of black metal, Norway's hard rockers are dragging heavy music into the 21st century
Nekromantik, the controversial career highlight of German movie director Jörg Buttgereit, is a film that stays with you. It is, after all, rife with depictions of murder, suicide, self-abuse and, predominantly, corpse-based copulation. More than 20 years later, Buttgereit's 1987 censor-baiter has become unlikely thematic inspiration for a wave of warped guitar-slingers flooding out of the Norwegian capital Oslo. Gladly, these discordant bands don't do the bad thing with deceased folk, preferring instead to breathe new life into what they see as a dead native rock scene.
Taking the dissonance of Nordic black metal but losing the dubious undercurrents of nationalism (and worse) that have dogged the Scandinavian musical counterculture, these bands make a racket inspired by American noise rock and British hardcore punk. The intellectualism of black metal is retained (despite what tabloids screamed at the time, only a tiny minority of black metal's "second generation" outfits were murderous church-burners) and this is especially the case when it comes to Haust, who are an integral part of nihilistic collective the Black Hole Crew. Haust's latest album, Powers of Horror, is named after an essay on abjection by Bulgarian-French feminist Julia Kristeva, for example. Vikings and Norse mythology are conspicuous by their absence.
"I don't think there are many good bands left in Norway," says Haust vocalist Vebjørn Guttormsgaard Møllberg. "You had all these black metal bands that shocked, did all this crazy stuff. Now there's almost no shock value left. Everyone has got too much money from the state." Norway is a land of widespread government-funded arts, and this does not necessarily make for great alternative art. "They become boring," explains the Haust singer. "The state is looking for something safe, something that's dead, lying there, that they can fuck back to life. I thought it was a fitting image for the hard music scene in Norway."
"The focus is very different from how the old black metal bands viewed the world," says Kjetil Nernes, frontman with necromantic stalwarts Årabrot, "with only individualism and bleak pessimism linking the two."
Haust applied the term "necromantic" to Scandinavian metal in the song Nekromantik Norway. This was also the name of a triple-pronged tour in autumn 2010 – the scene-defining lineup of which featured Haust sandwiched between Årabrot (named, fantastically, after a Norwegian municipal dump) and Okkultokrati, a crust-punk-indebted quartet who reference highbrow subjects such as atheistic metaphysics while revelling in such delightful pseudonyms as Verminscum. The thread connecting the trio, and the wider scene, is label Fysisk Format, run by respected Oslo independent record store Tiger.
"It's impossible to speak of a scene in Norway per se before Tiger established Fysisk Format in 2008," says Kjetil. "At the time Fysisk Format started, a new generation bred on the Melvins and Darkthrone spawned. All of a sudden there's a flourishing scene emerging from the underground, which is amazing."
"We don't have a political agenda," Vebjørn says, "but we don't want to sell Norwegian nationalism or black metal mythology either. The nationalism related to Norwegian culture through the years is so unsexy. We want to go in another direction and be ourselves, not zombies from this safe, rich country."
Okkultokrati and Haust tour the UK in February and April respectively. Årabrot's Revenge, Haust's Powers of Horror and Okkultokrati's No Light for Mass are all out now on Fysisk Format
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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