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.
Is the Bronfman exit the sign of great things to come in the record biz?
So Warner Music Group chairman Edgar Bronfman quit. Who cares? Well, I do, and so should you if you’re an artist or anyone who services one.
I never met Mr. Bronfman. The closest I came was to sit a table away from him at an awards function years ago, and here is the embarrassing part: I didn’t even know it was him.
Ed changed the music business, and though we could argue for another ten years as to whether he changed it for better or worse, the truth is that it’s now irrelevant, because it’s his departure and this particular time that has meaning. Now that the most significant (albeit not the largest) label, Warner, is in control and positioned to be the most influential distributor in the game, what is the Russian guy who bought it gonna do? He’s going to clean house as step one.
Ed didn’t just quit. He was fired. Not with a pink slip, but by the natural merger and acquisitions attrition of a golden parachute and planned obsolescence. If you didn’t see this coming, you’re not paying close enough attention to the recent music-biz math.
