EMI SHALL BE SOLD BRICK BY BRICK

So last night, while I was dancing my shoes into bits to tunes from Blur, The White Stripes and The Decemberists at the Underground (Cologne), a good friend of mine sent me that link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/07/emi-citigroup-throwing-away-musical-heritage?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

Ok it kinda was predictable that EMI wouldn’t survive the financial crisis, showing since of it’s death since 2007 when its markets hare was only 13% and decreasing rapidly to 10,2% in 2010 (source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), but I didn’t expect Citigroup to give up that quickly and I wouldn’t have suspected at all that they would dare to sell EMI basically in its separate fundamental parts to scrape together as little profit as the dying label could give off. There really isn’t any respect and the least love involved for music and cultural heritage in this obvious slaughtering, cause this is what it boils down to. 

Even though there are 3bn Pounds involved it is apparently not attractive enough in financial terms to be rescued and therefore only passion and love for contemporary music and most of all music history could be the saving anchor for this sinking ship. EMI’s back catalogue is full of this mentioned music history with bands of the like of Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent, Pink Floyd and of course The Beatles, just to name a few.

Therefore I think pleading to the British State Of Culture to save such an iconic label and with it half of Europeans Pop and Rock history is more than vital and of course the body shouldn’t even think twice about it

Furthermore, examined from the music business side, 3 major records labels ( Warner, Sony and Universal) would pose a new threat to the indie and DYI music scene as majors would get even more power and dominate the music market more than ever.  With EMI still on board a new upcoming band has more choice which label could work for their music career. Especially now, as nearly every small label is somehow owned by a major it is important to make sure that a diversity of labels and therefore different leading strategies are kept alive so that each and every artists gets the individualized support they need.

This means we can just hope that the European Commission won’t allow any of the other 3 majors to buy up pieces of their dying brother, making it even more impossible for any real indie label to get a food in this fast evolving hell of a music business.

What is your take on the whole situation? Do you think it doesn’t matter who ones the back catalogue as long as it doesn’t get lost? Or do you see a potential threat in merging EMI with Sony or any of the other giants? How do you predict the future of the majors and therefore as well of the independent record labels? And how long will Warners last  till it dies too as it is now the smalles of the 3 music giants?


Here is already new information on the happening, tho only in German:
http://www.turi2.de/2011/11/11/heute2-bertelsmann-geht-beim-kampf-emi-wohl-leer-12150766/
 

                                                                         RIP - EMI