Moses Supposes

Moses Supposes: EMI will not die, says CEO

Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com/blog.

It must be tough to be Roger Faxon right now. In early November, he wakes up to find that not only has his sugar daddy, Terra Firma, lost in court to its lender Citigroup, but many bloggers and journalists (me included) had written an epitaph to EMI, the company he runs, essentially throwing dirt on the grave of the major label before the coroner’s report is signed. Tired of pulling employees off the ledge of the building, Faxon fired back.

In an odd move, rather than call a press conference to publicly diffuse all the negative speculations, which would have opened his comments to journalists’ scrutiny, Faxon opted for a private memo to EMI staff. In essence, he called the press irresponsible and implied that the blogosphere should bugger off.