Lady Gaga’s Management Blues

It’s been reported that Lady Gaga, a performer seemingly at the height of her powers, has fired her longtime manager Troy Carter in a move that has many in the industry scratching their heads. Carter and his management company Atom Factory have been in charge of Gaga’s career since 2007 and are largely responsible for putting her in position to become the superstar that she is, and even more importantly, being able to financially take advantage of it.

There’s been no reason given for the split, but an artist/manager divorce usually comes down to one of three reasons; the artist isn’t making enough money, the artist is being asked to do something he or she feels compromises some artistic or personal integrity in order to make more money, or the artist feels slighted because the manager takes on a new client. 

Gaga’s making plenty of money (she reportedly made $80 million last year alone, topping Forbes list of most powerful musicians), so that’s an unlikely scenario. The other major star in Atom Factory stable is John Legend, but he isn’t a new signing, so that’s an unlikely conflict. 

That said, Carter does have a new label venture with Capitol Music Group with two new acts, Basic Vacation and The Ceremonies, the later who will have an EP released on November 19th. The label (Atom Factory Music) is said to be a hybrid record label in that it uses Capitol more for their radio promotion, with the rest of the marketing occurring in-house, which would take more attention than in a normal artist-manager-label relationship. This could be another thing that competed for the superstar’s attention. Read more on Forbes.

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