It's hard for me to get my head around what has gone so horribly wrong with and for EMI.

Yes, many are quick to utter the "Guy Hands Mantra" and blame the Chief Terrarist for all the chaos.

For all the changes.

For all the over-thinking.

For all the organization, re-organization and dis-organization.

But is he the only one who was part of The Blame Game?

Eydie Gorme blamed it on the Bossa Nova.

To me, The Guy is simply the last name on a long list of EMI' s Blame Game.

 

 

I was with EMI from 2002 to late 2007 and there for a few months when The Guy first marched into Wright's Lane and became the music industry's Poster Boy for Arrogance and Ignorance.He was Billy Blunder. He was so Hands-on, he was given the finger by all. Radiohead were the first. They just upped and left the company and brought out "In Rainbows" themselves and made more money with that record than they ever made with EMI which was suddenly starting to look like a house of cards.

 

The Guy was then likened to a plantation owner wearing a pithe hat and a safari suit and marching through the marshes during the days of the Raj by the Management of Robbie Williams. It was suddenly fashionable to dump on EMI - and leave the Company, something McCartney did, something the Stones did. Them leaving made no difference to EMI's bottom line, yes. It did, however, sully the image and perception of the company.

 

Hands massively overpaid for a very dysfunctional company pockmarked with various splinter groups and rife with politics. No one mentioned any of this to him. It's not part of "due diligence." He found all this out too late and then tried to bring in his own troops and caused even more confusion. Cue the incredible "Rolling Confusion." I really cannot think of a better EMI Theme Song. Gimme shelter, indeed.

 

What worked for The Guys when fixing up loos on the Autobahn and running German nursing homes don't really translate too well when trying to resurrect a comatose music company on the drip.

 

Why and how he was convinced to pay this outrageous amount of money for EMI is said to be then-EMI Chairman Eric Nicoli's finest hour.The Biscuit Bungler had finally banged in a goal. The Guy had been had and all the show and tell of becoming part of "showbiz" and rubbing shoulders with artists is said to have got the better of him.And his ego.And ergo Ego.

 

 

EMI was a mess before The Guy came, saw and self-imploded. It was a company made of factions - the Brits versus The US, The Brits versus The World, Tony Wadsworth who headed up the UK and his Dad's Army that had all the hits versus my two mates Alain Levy and David Munns and THEIR teams which were brought in to put Humpty Dumpty together again after The Berrys- the Ken and Nancy Show- had run riot with sex, drugs and rock'n roll.

 

"Waddy" was also "pitted" against Andy Slater and Matt Serletic in the US. Forget Serletic who wore nice suits and "gave bad nervous speech." Slater had good hair and a number of hits but came up short for EMI. Why? Perhaps it was the environment? Perhaps there was a  lack of trust.Perhaps he was having a few bad hair years?

 

Nicoli seemed to thrive on this - this lack of a cohesive team. After our incessant "worldwide meetings" where nothing was ever achieved, I  would laugh to watch those who had sat in the audience calling Nicoli "The Biscuit Bungler," "The Farmer" and a "tosser" almost STAMPEDE towards him to pay homage: "That was a SUPERB speech, Eric! Want anything? I can bend over right here? Come on, let me bend over right here! Ram me with your Yorkie bar - hard, big boy!"

 

Nicoli, The Smiling Assasin, might have kept people on their toes through his "divide and conquer" management "style," but it caused even greater friction between the UK and the US Offices. Good grief, you should have heard all the bitching, gossiping and moaning and pontificating. And that was coming from the Personal Assistants to the Personal Assistants.

 

This was part of the "EMI Culture" and a million light years away from the music company the great Bhaskar Menon had helped to build. This, I would often think, was once the home of the Beatles? THIS was the company that gave the world some of the greatest music? THIS was funnier than the Goons Show - but much sadder at the same time. This was Peter Sellers' singing "Goodness, Gracious Me."

 

When a guy like the pretty loopy Adam Klein was brought in to kinda, er, motivate us - he lasted six months - I knew I should have stayed at Universal. Or the ad industry. I missed my mentor at DDBN - Keith Reinhard. We - EMI - had gone back to kindergarten. Keith would never had let this happen. Nicoli did.

 

What followed and what has been allowed to happen is a laundry list of names, each trotted out but not there long enough to make any significant impact on the company. And, as discussed with a few former Execs with the company last week over dinner, it's a "music" company on its last legs with more "changes" to come and gasping for air. If a horse, it would be put outta its misery.     

 

When will there be another bona fide new Coldplay album?

Yes, there might be a rush release of tracks that never made it onto "Viva La Vida."

My bet: The band will breakup.

Norah has been quiet for years.

Robbie has been following UFOs and his football team Port Vale.

How long before he tells EMI to Take That and leaves?

 

 

I just watched Joss Stone on "American Idol" singing a soulful ballad with the ageless Smokey Robinson.

Is she still even WITH EMI?

Corrine Bailey Rae has, sadly, come and gone.

Gorillaz are said to be back, but it's been a long time between bananas.

KT Tunstall was good for one album.

Starsailor could have been great.

The band is bloody AMAZING.

 

Like all the other majors, one has to wonder exactly what EMI can offer artists today?

I know music companies who "want" artists, but what they fail to understand is that artists might not "want" them.

Those still running some of these companies feel they are "entitled."

What they refuse to understand is that artists are not interested in being beholden to anyone, especially, music companies and their army of lawyers.

They are smarter now about contracts and royalty splits and want Key Man Clauses included if and when they sign.

There is no trust.

It's like pre-nups in a marriage.

 

Doing business with a music company to artists is like doing a deal with the devil.

Also, unless she looks like Liz Hurley, why get into bed with the devil, when you can keep 100% of what is rightfully yours and do everything yourself?

What advances?

Is there still such a thing?

Non-recoupable advances?

And how much are they gonna take from you for simply being an expensive "collection agency?"

 

Everywhere I look, I see dead people with ideas which are DOA.

Ideas that won't even pay for a good meal.

So you sell - what is it - 500,000?

How much do you, the artist, make outta this?

How much does a music company make outta this?

Is there a real partnership?

 

The Beatles were ahead of their time with Apple.

Then Allen Klein was brought in and serves as a reminder how lawyers get in the way.

They are sycophants and are more of a hindrance [especially to progress] than a help.

They over-think something simple to death.

This is what keeps them in business.

 

 

Music companies continue to be run like The Emperor's New Robes.

The "Emperors" are surrounded by Yes People.

They hear what they wanna hear.

They don't understand that "legend" and "veteran" are two very different things.

Their egos are stroked.

Their heads are filled with "stuff.

This means they are stuffed.

George Harrison taught Son Dhani well.

.

EMI should never have reached this point of no return.

When the going was good, the company should have regrouped.

It should have taken the blinkers and side winkers off.

It should have not taken a historic studio like Abbey Studio for granted.

But this is what happens when private equity guys take over a music company.

Having said, this none of the "music guys" gave the studio much thought either.

 

EMI should also have not taken its artists for granted.

Nor the good people it once had.

It should have built on successes.

But when there were so many "priorities," where's the focus?

Instead, it chose to leave good enough alone.

It didn't stop the rain from coming in.

It never fixed that hole.

 

Guy Hands recently resigned as Chairman and CEO of EMI.

No big deal as he brought nothing to the tea party.

All that vast experience fixing up loos was not needed.

The company has done a deal with their NOW brand with Simon Fuller.

If not for being associated with someone as sharp as Simon, I'd go, Eh, so what?

 

 

These days, EMI comes across as being in the throes of a giant fire sale.

They are busy selling everything in bibs and bobs and for shillings.

They have sold Asia. They will sell Latin America.

It is no longer an "international" music company.

Is EMI still a "music" company?

More to the point, are there any bona fide "music" companies left?

Or are they all white elephants making muted trunk calls?

 

EMI should bite the bullet and put itself outta its misery. Whatever "brand equity" the name might have had, well, it's no longer there.

 

From once being the home of the Beatles - and Pink Floyd, Bowie, the Beach Boys, Queen, Sex Pistols etc - it's now a bit like a refuge camp. It's become known for being a "lawsuit label" than a music label.

 

Simply put, EMI is an unpopular name.

It has no "value."

And against today's backdrop of BMI and AEG and AIG and PCCW and BMG and BBDO etc, there's EMI.

Easy Monthly Installments, Electronic Magnetic Interference, Electric Musical Industries, whatever...

EMI has become Every Mistake Imaginable.

 

Now is the time to be brave, cut their losses, bring in a core team and return to company's core business - the Art of producing Music and nurturing and supporting musicians. And to start by admitting all the mistakes made and learn from the glitches holding back everybody else.

 

What's there to lose?

There's only everything to gain.  

Okay, all together now: "EMI" by the Sex Pistols.

       

 

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As the name suggests, We-Enhance is exactly about that: Enhancing the careers of artists, enhancing the consumer experience, enhancing companies that need enhancing and, perhaps most important of all, enhancing the creative product - and whatever this product might be.

 

We are here to provide solutions, not more confusion.

 

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