On 15 Jul 2002 at 17:37, Emily Gray Tedrowe wrote: > yeah, it's pretty wild about the reprise situation. reminds > me of aimee mann! apparently there is a new documentary > on wilco coming out soon--called "i am trying to break > your heart" which captures some good star-maker-machinery > dirt on that situation. >
I think Aimee's situation was quite different. Imago went out of business and wouldn't let her put the record out once she signed with Reprise. And her subsequent releases on Geffen lost money. No one wanted to sign her. Reprise could have kept YHF and shelved it, but they did the right thing - they let the band buy the record back and on the cheap at that. Wilco had been pretty much breaking even, but they just never had the commercial breakthrough that a major label needs (these days) to justify continuing. They got their record back and a clean financial slate to shop to other labels that were interested. And there were interested labels; they were not the pariah that Aimee had become. (Not to say that Aimee herself was a pariah; she was viewed as a pariah in terms of commercial possibilities.) B n.p.: Lalah Hathaway - "I'm Coming Back" -------------------------------------------- "Radio has no future" - Lord Kelvin, 1897
