No Rock And Roll Fun

DON'T DREAM: IT'S OVER: The Dreamworks masterplan lays in ruins. The Spielberg/Geffen and... someone beginning with K* plot to create a multi-media combine has run into the sand and, as a result, Dreamworks Music arm is being flogged off to Universal. The Music bit, which is still owned by Vivendi, the French drains company, not the other bit, which is now owned by NBC and fridge manufacturer General Electric. It's curious to us how the record industry keeps telling us they're really, really strapped for cash because of all this downloading, yet at the same time think nothing of splashing out a tenth of billion dollars on buying up what is, to be frank, a bit of a bobbins label: Who's their big hitter? Papa Roach? Nelly Furtado? The Shrek soundtrack? Where do Universal think they'll be making the money back on this deal? From the Alien Ant Farm back catalogue? It seems to have been a purchase purely done so someone at UMG can sit in a chair making all the Dreamworks staff dance dressed in paper knickers while they laugh. An ego-buy of an ego-combine.

* -Katzenberg. We were pretending.