Recording Stars Sing Farewell to Major Labels
By Brian Steinberg
* 03/29/99
The Wall Street Journal
(Copyright (c) 1999, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
* NEW YORK -- Before country-rocker Steve Earle planned his latest
album
for Time Warner Inc., its record division might have expected another
disk full of loud guitars, insightful lyrics and attitude. Instead,
Earle delivered soft music, rural musings and banjo strumming, which
the
label took as the aural equivalent of a slap in the face.
* That, at least, is the gospel according to Steve Earle.
The feisty musician said executives at Warner Brothers Records
initially approved his project. Earle followed his muse and used
Warner's money for studio time and the like. Finally, he said he told
* the company, "Here's your $450,000 bluegrass record."
But upon hearing the finished product, he said, Warner executives
told him they were no longer interested. So he quickly negotiated his
way out of his contract -- with his new album in tow.
The episode illustrates an increasingly prevalent record-industry
dilemma. Musicians are realizing they have an increasing amount of
power
and no longer need to hitch their hopes to a major label.
"I don't even talk to lawyers most of the time," Mr. Earle cracked,
"much less like having them involved in my art."
* In late February, he released his Warner-financed bluegrass opus,
"The Mountain," on his own label, E-Squared, which he started in 1995.
The album sold more than 10,000 copies in the first week, said Earle's
partner, Jack Emerson, more than Warner's first-week sales of "El
Corazon," a 1997 Earle record recently nominated for a Grammy. Most of
his albums have sold 250,000 to 1.5 million copies.
Warner disputes Earle's version of events. The artist wanted to
leave
"before we knew what his next album was going to be," said label
spokesman Bob Merlis.
Other musicians are also taking matters into their own hands.
E-Squared is just one of many independent labels striving to sell
overlooked music to the masses. Dozens support ousted musicians, while
others were formed by industry veterans fed up with music-business
maneuvering.
The "Artist," formerly known as Prince, left Warner in a widely
reported huff in 1996 to record on his own NPG Records. Kelly Willis,
an
* alternative-country chanteuse, recently left the now-defunct A&M
Records
and found other financing -- then gave the resulting work, released
last
month, to independent Rykodisc. Country veteran Emmylou Harris left a
Warner-affiliated label to release a live album on a private label last
summer. Ani DiFranco wins notice for promoting her hard-to-categorize
sound through her own Righteous Babe Records, of Buffalo, N.Y.
"For five years, there has been a great increase in the number of
new
independent labels," said Pat Bradley, executive director of the
Association for Independent Music, "but that is counterbalanced by the
fact that a lot of those that come along only exist for six months to a
year."
The Internet has made marketing easier, she said, giving everyone
the
same chance to lure consumers. But a backlash has already started. The
rise of little independents is "just saturating the marketplace," she
said, rendering record store space more difficult for all to nab.
And since Seagram Co. acquired PolyGram NV in December, the
company's
immense Universal Music Group has been shedding enough employees and
artists to staff a rival label.
One artist dropped was Joel Ely, a 51-year-old Texas songwriter who
makes albums filled with taut storytelling, cowboy philosophy and
searing guitar. He has even flirted with punk-rock, opening concerts
for
The Clash in their 1980's heyday. None of these abilities stopped MCA
from dropping him twice in a 20-year span.
The lack of major backing hasn't fazed him, he said. "I've never
felt
more free to make music, and never have so many things come up to
present themselves." He is writing songs for movies and seeking a way
to
sell a live album.
Mark Olson left the Jayhawks, a band with country leanings, just
after they released an album to the widest acclaim they had ever
received. Now he sells his two homemade records via the Internet and
mail-order. Mr. Olson, 37, said he has sold only about 10,000 records,
but he gets to keep more of the money.
* Warner had good relations with Steve Earle before the split. Since
emerging from a decades-old heroin addiction and a long record-industry
exile, the 44-year-old Mr. Earle transformed himself from musical
outlaw
to respected veteran, and released three Warner-associated albums to
critical acclaim.
A prolific songwriter who sings in a raspy twang -- the partial
result of a 1987 encounter between his throat and a security guard's
nightstick -- he is known for writing about life lived close to the
bone. His efforts have been compared to work by Bruce Springsteen and
Ernest Hemingway. For all his songwriting bravado, it's hard to imagine
Earle as the head of a record company. He said he became addicted to
heroin in his early teens and the problem grew worse as his career
blossomed. "It was a matter of how much money I had," he said. "When I
started making real money, I started getting into real serious
trouble."
In 1994, he served 4 1/2 months in prison and 30 days in a treatment
facility on a drug-possession charge. But his career had already been
established. Earle's first record, "Guitar Town," topped the
* country-music charts in 1986.
Subsequent albums strayed from the genre's conventions. Lyrics
seethed. Guitars grew louder. Yet Earle continued to garner a rabid fan
base and critical bouquets. He left his original record company, MCA,
in
1991 as his drug problem escalated. His next album, an independent
effort later licensed to Warner, didn't appear until 1995.
Although Mr. Earle and partner, Mr. Emerson, say they enjoy their
independence, they struggle without the backing of a big label. Gone
are
the legions of Warner employees working on an artist's behalf. Instead,
there's just a handful, including Mr. Earle's teenage son.
