Feeder leaves Chrysalis hungry

Under-performing albums from Feeder and Gnarls Barkley have shouldered the blame for Chrysalis issuing glum predictions about its performance this year:

The downbeat outlook came in spite of strong performances from releases by Portishead and Estelle, whose single American Boy reached the top of the UK chart. However, there have been higher write-offs for new artists and the Echo recording business had performed below expectations. The new Gnarls Barkley album “just didn’t do as well as we hoped”, said Andy Mollett, finance director.

“Some of the things we thought would be successful just haven’t come up trumps.

They're now hoping that Laura Marling will pull them out the hole. Now, we love Laura's music, but we wouldn't have thought her appeal was so broad as to make up the distance.

Robbie Williams is not done paying yet

The libelous Rudebox track continues to fill Nigel Martin-Smith's pockets, as he accepts payments from Chrysalis after they distributed Williams' work. Although the High Court had stepped in before the album was made available to the public, the original version had been distributed to journalists; although the label tried to recall them, they didn't do so quickly enough:

Matthew Nicklin, for Chrysalis, said that it "wishes to make it clear that it did not intend the lyrics of The 90s to be taken at face value or as a serious statement of the views that Chrysalis holds of Mr Martin Smith."

"Chrysalis did not intend to allege that Mr Martin Smith has ever stolen funds from Take That, or from anyone," he said.

You do wonder if EMI had anyone from their legal department listen to the track before pressing up the records. Or even if EMI has a legal department these days.

EMI: Economies of scale - they'll save us...

With money getting tight and a label losing talent both artistic and managerial, what can Guy Hands do to try and salvage EMI?

Erm, spend more money buying Chrysalis, apparently.

It suggests that Hands' strategy is going to concentrate more on catalogue and publishing than the riskier business of making new records. But it also suggests a certain degree of creeping desperation at the top level of Terra Firma.

Are Blondie, EMI ripping off Peter Leeds?

That's what he believes. He managed Blondie during 1978 & 1979 and, for some reason, has been earning a percentage of the band's take ever since. We're not quite sure why.

It looks like Blondie are a little less than thrilled to be paying a guy who hasn't done a thing for them in nearly three decades, and have decided that instead of calculating his slice of the cake on gross earnings, they're subtracting the payments to producers before coming up with a figure. Leeds insists this is a "renegotiation" of the 1979 contract of pay-off, and is dragging the whole thing to court.

He's taking a risk - if the courts do agree with Blondie's reading of the document and their new interpretation, Leeds could be leaving himself open for a counter-action reclaiming twenty-five odd years of overpayment.

Heart murmurs

The future of Heart and Galaxy is up in the air this morning as owners Chrysalis announce a review of their business. Amongst the possible options are a demerger of the radio and music divisions:

Chrysalis chief executive, Richard Huntingford, added: "The latest Rajars and current trading confirm that we start this process from a position of considerable strength.

"We have no preconceived view on the outcome of the review, other than a commitment to ensure Chrysalis Radio's participation in the long-term development of the UK radio sector and thereby deliver the greatest benefit to all stakeholders, including shareholders, listeners, advertisers and employees."

Our instinct here - and forgive us our cynicism - is that the second on that list of stakeholders might be lowest in list of priorities.

He doesn't even get it right when he's talking about himself

From Media Monkey:

Writing in his column for the Sunday Express, Boy George takes the opportunity to "shamelessly plug" (as he puts it) his new radio show on "GLR". Not only does GLR no longer exist, but the station that replaced it, BBC London Live, is probably the biggest rival of the station he really works for - LBC. Here's hoping he has a good relationship with station owners Chrysalis.

Mind you, the Guardian's media column should be a bit kinder - after all, London Live was replaced by BBC London almost a year ago; and what paper has led to the internet suggesting that Jerry Hall has made up a defence of Pete Townshend because it misplaced their conversation about kiddie porn online from 2001 to 1991?