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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Universal Music Sells Sanctuary, And Why That Matters

According to a story in the LA Times last week, Universal Music Group has agreed to sell Sanctuary Records, home to metal acts like Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Iron Maiden and Megadeth, to BMG Rights Management. Universal was forced to sell the label as well as other assets as part of an agreement with regulators from the EU in order for the purchase of EMI to be approved.

What's interesting here is that BMG has quietly been acquiring publishing and record labels over the past 4 years, and now looks like it might position itself once again as one of the major record labels, which is good news to everyone in the business. After all, the more competition, the better. It's true that BMG was once one of the Big 5 major labels, but decided to go more into publishing after it merged and unmerged with Sony Music. Now it looks like it's back in the "record" business again.

If you've read my Music 3.0 book, you know that Sanctuary was a unique record label in that it lead the way to the DIY movement that we have today. The problem was that it got too successful and veered off-course, causing it to become just another label which was eventually acquired by Universal in 2007. Here's an excerpt from the book that explains just how influential the company was.

"In 1979 Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor discovered and then managed the legendary metal band Iron Maiden. They subsequently named their management company after the band’s song “Sanctuary” and expanded their roster to include similar bands of the genre.

Soon afterwards, Sanctuary Management had a brilliant idea. As managers of so-called “heritage acts” that had long-term appeal and large fan bases but no record deals, the company decided to independently finance CD releases for the bands themselves. After all, the audience was built-in and rabid. They’d buy anything the bands would put out, so why not release it themselves if a major label wouldn’t? The bands were going to tour anyway, so they might as well have a product to sell. Little did they know at the time, but this was the beginning of the new business model where the tour sells the record instead of the record selling the tour, as it did in Music 1.0 to 2.0. 

In the past, if an act would get hot as a result of local radio play, they would then tour in that location to take advantage of the energized interest. The record sold the tour by virtue of the airplay it received. The record was selling the tour. If the record flopped, there would be no tour. 

But in the new Sanctuary model, since the act had a strong enough fan base to support a tour anyway, why not have some product to back it up? With these new economics of self-financing the release, the act could now make more money than ever on fewer units sold. And since it was cheaper than ever to create a release (since by then most musicians had a studio at home that was more powerful than The Beatles ever had during their heyday), the stage was set for taking advantage of both the technology and the consumer environment. 

For a time, Sanctuary Records and its artists succeeded wildly, to the point that the company expanded into a full-fledged record label (and a subsidiary of Universal Music) with traditional Music 2.0 staff and infrastructure. Soon afterward, however, it collapsed under the weight of that traditional infrastructure. The company had ventured beyond its original concept and comfort level, and eventually paid for it. Sanctuary was acquired by Universal at the end of 2007, but today Sanctuary Management continues to represent the likes of Fleetwood Mac, ZZ Top, Tommy Lee, and Velvet Revolver, among others, but has drifted somewhat from its initial intentions and goals. 

Sanctuary started the trend of an artist self-releasing a record during Music 2.0, way ahead of the curve and way ahead of what's commonplace today. Without knowing it at the time, the company paved the way for artists living in Music 3.0, where self-production, promotion, and distribution is not only commonplace, but becoming the norm."

You can read additional excerpts from my books at bobbyowsinski.com.

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Why "Gagnam Style" Is The Most Viewed Video Of All Time

It was reported over the weekend that Psy's "Gangnam Style" video had surpassed Justin Bieber's "Baby" for the most viewed ever online with over 806 million views. Think of that - 800 million views! There's been a lot of analysis as to why "Gangnam Style" became the video sensation that it is, from humor to explosions to kids to sexy girls to the dance (all true), but I have another take on it from a more macro perspective.

• There's a bigger online audience: The world is much more connected than any other time in history. As a result, there's a bigger potential audience for a phenomena like "Gangnam Style." You'll see this viewing record broken the next time a similar sensation takes place.

• He came from a different part of the world: Most huge trends like this tend to start in the US, but in this case, the US was only icing on the cake. With Psy being Korean, "Gangnam Style" broke out from the East and headed West, rather than the other way around. It was already huge by the time North America got hip to it, but what put it over the top was..........

• Exploitation: The fact that Scooter Braun, Justin Bieber's manager, got involved sent Psy and "Gangnam Style" to another level. All of a sudden, Psy was on every television show you could think of, from Saturday Night Live to the MTV Video Music Awards to the Today show to name just a few. With these appearances, he jumped generations from K-Pop (Korean Pop) to seniors dancing to it at the local rec center. As with most artists, management is still the key.

After another single or two you may never hear from Psy again as he goes the way of the Macerana, but you can be sure that you'll see something like this again probably sooner than later.

By the way, "Gangnam Style" also holds another distinction. It has the most likes of any video with more than 2 million. Beiber's "Baby" comes in 3rd following the 1.6 likes of LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem."

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You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

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Artist Management According To Flo & Eddie

In January the legendary producer and engineer Ken Scott and I gave a guest lecture at Belmont College in Nashville at the behest of professor Mark Volman, who many of you know as one of the main men of the 60's group The Turtles, and latter of their own group Flo & Eddie. Mark and his partner Howard Kaylan had numerous misadventures in the business side of music, some of which are illustrated in the humorous video regarding their many managers. To say the least, kids, don't try this at home.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.