I appreciate that they gave her a huge advance and mismanaged the deal - but lets face it that's the way they work - big investment big return. They are not interested in investing in work that will only sell small (by their standards) amounts even if its pushed hard.
They didn;t always work entirely like that, tho. Several of us on this list are old enough to remember the days of the "prestige artist" -- the guy on the major label who never got dropped, because he he was such a genius. And they'd fund every one of his none-selling masterpieces because they felt like they were making enough $ do occasionally strike a blow for art for art's sake. Guys like Van Dyke Parks, John Prine, David Bromberg etc were in that realm of not much sales, but big prestige. Nobody ever thought these guys would have hits, but it was important to the labels to do a public service the way TV news used to be before the moguls decided TV news needn't be a service but rather a product. In all fairness to the majors -- or anyone -- there should never be a presumption that just because you have money means you're obligated to spend a lot of hours and sweat on something that's only going to cost you money in the long run. On the other hand, recent sales numbers beg a re-evaluation of what "reasonable" sales numbers are, to say nothing about realistic sales figures, promotion budgets etc. A smart budgetarian is the guy who figures out -- accurately -- the cost of his record by first assessing how big is the built-in audience for that record. If it's 500 people, spend accordingly, not hopefully. People always look back at Tim berne's short stay at Columbia. FULTON STREET MAUL was a brilliant record (still some of my favorite Berne, espec "Betsy"), but, given the nembers Columbia needed -- which were based on how much it costs to do a major label record (factor in mailing 4000 -- yes, that's thousand and not a typo -- promo copies to start, which is usual for a major, or at least used to be), you can see where a record that's not really designed to shatter the glass ceiling isn;t going to be justfiable from a major standpoint. Word to the wise -- certain artists are better off at a responsible indie than at a major. Major labels are not inherently evil. They've gotten pretty terrible in the last six years. But these were once the workplaces of the guys that took chances on the Beatles, Coltrane, Miles, Public Enemy, Curtis Mayfield, Zappa, etc, largely because the guys who really succeeded as A&R men were the ones who knew that taking chances was the only way to reach an audience in a whole other way. They weren't MBAs looking into "demographics". They were guys who thought the best way to stay in business was to have something the other guy didn't have. Now, it's all about coming up with something just like what's already selling, to have something exactly what the other guy has so you can sponge his audience. Imagine: "Columbia is having good luck with Wynton? Quick, sign that Hargrove kid. He's young and black and has a suit and a trumpet. We can sell that." back in the day, it went more like this: "Cameo/Parkway has that dance craze shit sewn up. We gotta find something to beat that. Hey -- that Jerry Butler kid with the chruchy singers, that 'For Your Precious Love' thing -- let's put that out so they have something slow to dance to FOR A CHANGE." Granted, Cameo and VeeJay were indies, but they were big indies with a (comparitively) lot of money and distribution to get their job done. But they were emblematic of the times. From their ranks emerged real giants -- econonomically and artistically -- like Phil Spector and James Brown. Because the attitude throughout the culture was to do something that the other guy couldn't or wasn't. But, when you've got Oprah and five things like Oprah, Brittney and five things like Brittney, and ad infinitum, the entertainment business is subverted 180 degrees from what made it so great not that long ago. I read somewhere that if Richard Nixon were to return to this world today (an ugly thought unto itself), he'd never recognize the post-Reagan Republican Party. Similarly, I think if Jack Kapp, Buddy DeSylva, or any of the cats who invented the major labels came back today, they'd never recognize -- let alone understand -- the major label of today. Hell, the first thing most of those guys -- who largely built their success on Ellington, Goodman, Basie, and Cole -- would ask is "How come your jazz departments are doing such shitty sales?" skip h NP: Kenyon Hopkins, ROOMS