Re: (TV) Re: TV Digest V1 #4

[Michael Olcsvary <olcsvary@erols.com>]

Wow - I didn't know I was guilty of a bias crime!
Okay, maybe not all MBAs are soulless bean counters, but I'll betcha all
soulless bean counters are MBAs.  While I agree that record labels aren't
supposed to be charity institutions, I feel that when you're rolling in
megabucks, you ought to have some obligation to put put something that, while
not a sure fire hit, might be good, interesting, or different.  I don't think
Atlantic signed the Velvets because they thought Lou Reed was going to generate
10 top forty singles, but because he deserved to be heard.  Same thing with the
Doors ( their first single bombed ), and tell me someone didn't listen past
Dylan's vocal skills ( or lack thereof ) and decide there was something
worthwhile there.  In all three cases, it was because one person, who either ran
the label ( Ahmet Ehrtegun (sic), Jac Holzman ) or pretty much ran a division (
John Hammond ) went with their gut and not with the ledgers.  Nowadays, the
ledgers rule - it's not enough to be good, or even break even - you've got to be
obscenely profitable.  And having worked in a field that used to take chances -
commercial FM radio, what we used to call "underground" or "free form" - I can
tell you the reason you hear the same 20 tracks on the air nowadays are the
result of bean counters following the dictates of CYA.  So if it makes you feel
better, you may substitute "bean counters" for "MBA."  And if you ( or anyone
else on the list ) are one of the latter, you obviously are different from the
norm and a very endangered species.  Watch your back.

On a completely unrelated note:  RIP, Clayton Moore.


Emilie Hsu wrote:

> Come on Michael, record labels (regardless of how much we dislike them) are
> really not supposed to be charity institutions.  Should Britney Spear start
> losing money, they would drop her as well.  Maybe Michael would like to go
> back to the pre-Beethoven patronage system?  The blanket statement on all
> MBA's is pretty offensive, man, most MBA's I know would probably not regard
> working for a record label as their primary aspiration.

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