Days I remember all my life

I tuned in to my new found radio home ( http://www.manchesterradioonline)  because radio honcho man Paul Ripley had uttered the words ‘Guess who’s on my show? ‘ And the guess who was none other than the Martian Spider himself Woody Woodmansey. All of a sudden I was working while I was listening to the radio and I thought I’d discovered multi tasking. I was wrong, I stopped and I listened. Radio heaven, a spider talking about the web he lived in.

It’s hard to believe that Ziggy celebrates his 40th year anniversary this June and they are still not teaching it at schools, even worse why isn’t it a case study at music schools, business schools, everywhere! Paul started proceedings with ‘Five Years’ from the Hunky Dory album, well that was it. I downed tools and gloriously fell back in time, I was at The Hardrock  (no please, no burger references, it wasn’t that one) and I was rammed close up front and personal and gazing forward at what still remains one of the greatest concerts of my life. Not of course that I’ve been to many….It was September 1972, Saturday 2nd to be exact and I went back the next night to see them again. And again in December, he played that same venue four times that year. And yes I did.

That song took me back to my college years and when I first heard it. I had just bought Ziggy Stardust and was thrilled to bits. I had just also starting dating a ‘college cutie’ I think we call them now, back then she was just a chick. I think we’d been for  a drink, maybe  a movie and then it was back to listen to records until God knows what hour until I’d hitch home. You did these things back then, it was the norm for teenagers like us. Can you imaging even thinking of doing that now, never mind hitching home but just the mere thought of listening to a record !

Anyway she pulled out Hunky Dory and stuck on Five Years, and then initiated me with the rest of the album. That was it, I never left and were married six years later. Why wouldn’t you marry a girl with a record collection like that, Marie I thank you! Oh and for our two beautiful children but let’s face it Bowie came first.

Back to the show. Woody was an unassuming character, happy with his lot today yet proud and very grateful for what he’d had. Well who wouldn’t be, there was only him and three others after all. It was fascinating to hear someone other than Bowie talking about that period and especially from where he was standing, behind the man and driving home a relentless beat. What a seat! He spoke of how he got the gig and also about the late Mick Ronson, never a forgotten hero to me and many others. I can see him now with his glam pants and mad hair, and that iconic rock pose with Bowie sliding under his legs and dragging the solo out of him. Bowie loved him and although Mick  was a wonderful guitar player Woody said he never saw himself like that. Bowie would ask him to play a solo and then tell the producer, ‘keep it’ although Mick thought he needed to go back and do it over and over again. When you’re that good you’re good first time round.

Woody also talked of those wondrous eccentricities that are David Bowie. How he would ‘mess about,’ pick up an accordion that was lying around and tell the producer Ken Scott, ‘record this.’ The band would sit around and watch all this going on thinking, why is he pissing about, let’s get on with it. Then it would be played around with in creative , innovative ways with his producer and himself and they’d look at each other and say, ‘how the hell did he get it sound like that?’ And it would end up on the album and the rest indeed is history.

Great stories makes great radio and this was great in itself. Good questions that came over like any fan would ask and a responsive totally normal guy telling it like it was. It could have gone on forever, I’m first in line to request a repeat. Get him back and roll the tape once more. It gives you hope and brings back your faith in radio once more. Bring it on.

Thank you for the days,
Those endless days, those sacred days you gave me.
I’m thinking of the days,
I won’t forget a single day, believe me.

Ray Davies 1968

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, manchester radio on line, Opportunity, Radio Ga Ga, Hunky Dory, Mick Ronson, Woody Woodmansey, ziggy stardust

McLaren’s final pit stop

Few people leave their mark in pop music the way Malcolm McLaren did.  That’s the problem with the music industry today it’s too safe, too squeeky clean and  too uninspiring. It lacks characters like McLaren, Tony Wilson and other mavericks, the rebels who believed in getting their artists known because, stupid as it sounds they believed in them.  Malcolm left his mark in a way few will ever emulate and few will ever forget. Successful as Simon Cowell is the whole  American Idol funfare is safer than safe. Uninspiring artists covering tried and tested songs, one of them wins and they give them a song to release, make all the money and then they’re done. Nothing remotely exciting, you expect nothing and you’re content  to get nothing. But then again Simon Cowell believes in pop music as a disposable commodity, there is no longevity in it so who am I to judge? Memories are not always made by hits.

People like McLaren made the music industry great, he made people sit up and take notice. He was driven and he was noisy, he was a man on  a mission. A relentless bulldog and once he had the bit between his teeth he was off and running.   To quote his own words’ “I have been called many things: a charlatan, a con man, or, most flatteringly, the culprit responsible for turning British popular culture into nothing more than a cheap marketing gimmick”  And most of the people who see that as criticism probably inspired him to do more of the same. Great publicists like to get noticed and McLaren did more than enough of that. When you hear the words ‘cheap marketing gimmick’ applied to the likes of The Sex Pistols, New York Dolls or Bow Wow Wow it makes you wonder what we’ve replaced the word ‘cheap’ with today, worthless? It’s definitely cheaper than cheap.

The Sex Pistols got on more front covers of national newspapers in six months than a high profile act would get in their entire career. You couldn’t avoid finding out what they were up to and McLaren couldn’t give a toss about what people were saying about the band as long as they were saying it. He got noticed and they got noticed, he hit a nerve and he generated a reaction. And again like Tony Wilson, if you met him you knew you’d met him. He was never, whatshisname? If he didn’t think it would create a fuss then he couldn’t be bothered and his ability to manipulate the media to get what he wanted was unique.

I met him once when I interviewed him the mid 90’s and no matter what the question might be he would swerve the conversation into exactly what he wanted to say. He lapped up any media opportunity and of course being articulate and interesting in the way he explained stuff always helped.  He was a brilliant marketing guy who also knew a lot about other people’s jobs and if you were below par he had no problem telling you. Record labels had a hard time with him!

There is no doubt The Sex Pistols had the best manager they could ever have dreamed for. They’d never admit it and it’s well documented that they, particularly John Lydon/Rotten had their problems with him but it was only to be expected that when it was over he would be the target of criticism. How else could they maintain their image unless they still had a reason to be angry and controversial. If it’s not around you anymore then all of a sudden you have to recreate it. But if you look at everything that got them noticed, the  publicity it was all his doing. The anarchy, the boat trip down the River Thames on the Queen’s Jubilee, the whole God Save the Queen outrage in fact. When it came to shock he near as damn invented it.  He knew how to get his band on the front cover and he would stop at nothing. It was almost too easy for him, why employ a publicist when he could do it all himself?

Malcolm McLaren, Malcom in the middle. Of everything.

Filed under: management, Managing Creativity, Opportunity, Malcolm McLaren, Sex Pistols, Simon Cowell, tony wilson

Another Brit in the wall

The Brits. that much lauded, much laughed at awards ceremony celebrating what’s best in British music. But has it really ever done that? Those who think they know put together a list of nominees, spread them around the labels they work for and then troll along to the event knowing that their expenses will get signed off,  because they sign them. When they start off there is speculation, will they get it right and then as each year goes by your expectations become less and less. Until you expect nothing and you’re satisfied. . Next year I vow to not even comment, though I might have said that last year. I only watched for curiosities sake and Lady Ga Ga who by a mark of respect for Alexander McQueen was very low key on the night.

I’m just glad they haven’t come up with a ‘Lifetime Whinger’ award for Whitney Houston or ‘The Lifetime Ego’ award for Clive Davis. In fact it would need to be  ‘The Clive Davis Award’ so Clive can come up on stage to present it to himself every year, and then when he pops it Whitney can come up and accept it posthumously on his behalf and tell us how he will always be missed. ‘I will always love me.’ Clive’s cover version of Whitney’s cover of Dolly’s song. (Parton the pun.)

The funny thing is I didn’t see the whole of The Brits but I saw enough on You Tube and read various reports all saying the same thing as it’s said every year. It is what it is, but does is what it is make it what it should be? The problem is we don’t have anything to celebrate now, no one’s buying records so the only way they can get anyone to watch a show is to put the only artists on who sell anything. So then we are left with a show to showcase the artists who’s records we have already bought.

You’d be tempted to call the proceedings ‘safe’ if it wasn’t for the predictable controversy of ‘anarchy.’ We’d had the water thrown over John Prescott outrage. We’ve had the Michael Jackson carry on from Jarvis Cocker. We’ve had the Sam Fox, Mick Fleetwood great presenters of our time show. We’ve had the lot but they always manage to find something that will make it to the papers. But didn’t you expect it the moment Liam Gallagher stepped up on the stage, that sweet aroma of predictability where he wants to grow old disgracefully and The Brits is the place to do it. I saw him swagger up and I was going ‘Go on Liam do something outrageous, be respectful and say what a fantastic ride Oasis had been.’ Thank others for allowing you your own bit of the limelight but no he did the most obvious thing possible. He was Liam twenty years on.

He wasn’t there to celebrate anything, he just thought he needed a bit of attention and he knew the media would lap it up. But now when you’ve been and gone wouldn’t it have been more outrageous then to do something not outrageous? People would have given him a rousing reception but he’d rather take the swipes, it’s mens work. How utterly ludicrous to thank his band apart from the one person who allowed their very existence. Why would we have ever wanted another swaggering monkey when we still had the King Monkey himself, Ian Brown?  And let’s face it Ian Brown has always been and still is cooler than Liam Gallagher. Sorry Liam you worked well in the band as a front man but all the tired tactics? It’s no longer relevant.

Maybe you should have kissed Robbie Williams live at The Brits. Damn, I’ve given them an idea for next year. it if not for whom it wouldn’t have been much of a band.

Filed under: mistakes, Opportunity, record companies, View from the room, Ian Brown, Lady Ga Ga, Liam Gallagher, The Brits, You Tube channel

Do artists still want it enough?

You admired those artists and what they had and if you had a bit of that talent you thought you stood a chance. It was worth giving it a go and at least if it didn’t happen it wasn’t the end of the world, you’d given it your best shot. You never needed to look back and think, ‘what if’? What if I hadn’t tried, I might have never known if I could have made it. Hope came from inspiration and even if you were down on your luck something might trigger that dream and you’d go and spend your last thirty  pounds or dollars on a guitar. It was worth it. Do people do that anymore, do they  believe enough or have they been so brainwashed by  an industry that doesn’t believe enough in itself?  The industry is accepting of the fact that music doesn’t sell anymore and they’re looking for new revenue streams to claw on to anything they can. And yet they chose their own burial grave, they even bought up all the lots as year after year they didn’t seem concerned that independent records stores were closing. The first port of call for their new artists was disappearing around them and instead of reaching out to help they increased their discounts to Walmart and anyone else who’d buy in bulk. Never mind that they only bought a few titles, it was quick cash. Talk about biting off the hand that fed them for decades, they didn’t given a toss about the independent retailers who’d done as much as anyone to break their biggest selling artists. Where did they think they came from, Walmart?

So what does drive the people making the music nowadays? Are they too accepting that there is a depressing reality in how many records they can sell? I suppose so, records and selling don’t go hand in hand anymore. Physical product doesn’t sell whoever you are with the odd one off exceptions to the rule like Susan Boyle and we all know where she came from. And furthermore will she be selling records in five years? Somehow I think not  and quite probably the novelty will have worn thin. There have been opera singers since before Elvis, they have always been there. So X Factor found a woman who sang opera OK, so what? They found an ordinary person singing opera, does that makes her extraordinary? She didn’t invent it, where’s the X for factors sake?  And all the Italians in flowing robes learned to sing mighty fine,  they didn’t need a talent show. And in the UK Russell Watson became big a decade ago so still nothing remotely novel or Xy about Susie girl. Funny how we used to do OK for talent before we had talent shows. We had a way to discover music but it started with an interest in it in the first place. Artists were interested in being heard and the public was keen to listen. Today they just don’t care and interest doesn’t even compare to passion. When did we last hear people being passionate about music. They have more passion for a pair of shoes!

Digressed a little there so more to come but that’ll do for today’s episode.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, record companies, Simon Cowell, Susan Boyle, talent, X Factor

Is talent enough any more?

What motivates an artist today, what drives them?  In the past you saw the people you admired slowly grow and that was pretty much the case through the sixties, seventies, eighties and in to the nineties. Everyone who was ever in a band had someone to look up to, someone they admired. They didn’t want to be them but it inspired them to pick up a guitar, write a song, get up and play. It was the motivation and the inspiration. And most of these people they admired weren’t overnight successes either, they worked hard, toured their asses off and built a foundation. And if that foundation was built on talent and a work ethic and you became successful everyone was delighted. The artist derived pleasure and satisfaction knowing that they’d persevered and always believing that it was only a matter of time.  And you felt good becasue you ‘d stuck with them and watched them flourish.

The great thing about that was that people respected how you got there and it made them even keener to sustain their support for you. You became somewhat of a role model. They didn’t want to be you but thought the way you’d done it was an honest and deserving route to success. They wanted that, that was the inspiration.

What drives the artist today knowing that the stark reality is they won’t get a recording contract? In fact they won’t even get their stuff heard unless they’re solicited, and of course 99% aren’t. How long can they afford to keep believing when the real world says you have to pay the rent and a full time music career could be a long way off, if it’s there at all. It’s a catch 22 scenario, they need the time to develop themselves as is the case nowadays and if they’re working forty hours a week outside of that where is the time? How many potential great artists will be losing if they just can’t give the time?

More to debate, later.

Filed under: Opportunity, record companies, View from the room, A and R people, artist development, artists, getting started, inspiration, motivation

Where are you taking us now, music biz?

So there I was all settled  down last night just checking out Facebook before slumping on the couch and up popped this instant message. It was from Sam and it said ‘ What makes a great debut album.’ One hell of a question I have to say but what an unbelievable topic to explore. What does make a great debut album indeed?

I could pontificate endlessly but let’s face it, and I make no pretense here, times change. Understatement of the year I might add. Maybe we should give 1967/1968 as an answer , what an amazing period, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Moby Grape, The Band, Captain Beefheart, Traffic and The Doors. Not bad for great debut albums and all in just under two years, eh?

It’s not just about having a great debut album, it’s about being an artist and having greatness in you.  When I was growing up so many of the people I admired aspired to greatness and if you were a fan you knew it was only a matter of time before they reached that.  You bought their album because maybe you’d seen them live, you’d heard them on the radio and you liked them. If you bought the album and there were a few fillers what the hell, we’ve all been there, correct? But more than anything you believed in them and they too believed in you, the fan. They didn’t wan to short change you, they chose this path to earn their living and they felt it necessary to give value for money. They were hungry and they were committed, they put their heart and soul in to it. And not only that, right through the sixites and up until the nineties the record company was committed too. They would send you back in to the studio if they thought what you brought them was unsatisfactory. They signed you because they knew you could do it and if what they heard was substandard then, go do it again. It’ was a bit like being kept behind at school .

Labels were proud of what they released and they didn’t want anything substandard on their roster either . I wasn’t alone in collecting records back then on Island and Electra. I knew that most of the time I’d like what I heard. They set standards and if it was a new band and it was on one of those labels I’d be the first in to the store to listen to it. I was excited. labels got excited and the artist was excited to hear what the media had to say about them. They were prepared to be judged.

Nowadays it’s all changed. You could say no one gives a fuck but naturally that would be a generalization. There are some labels that genuinely care but there are a bunch sticking stuff out to suit a demographic knowing they can sell X amount and far more importantly, not lose their job. It’s about safety, if they can’t or don’t know how to market it then they won’t sign it because if they do they are leaving themselves exposed. It beggars the question, do we have the talent at the labels that we once had. I’m bound to say no but just work it out for yourselves, are you getting what you want or are you getting what they think you deserve? Is it a discerning audience, I think not. People growing up don’t really know what they are missing. If you’re on TV then they think you’re famous. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a thousand times, YOU’RE NOT. You’re notorious.  Rapists, murderers, terrorists and child molesters are on the television, are those twats famous? Though even I wouldn’t tag today’s ‘stars’ quiet that badly.

For me it’s a massive point of debate. Where does the hunger come from now, where is the desire to dazzle. What does the artist look for when they deliver their work. It’s a thousand questions and it’s a million answers. I’ll be back to discuss much more on this. It doesn’t seem right we stand back and let it happen but sadly we’re mostly powerless. The people who need to care don’t and those don’t never will. Feels like we’re in a minority and the force feeding to the masses has turned us in to arena addicts.

Where are our gladiators when we need them?

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, record companies, Risk, creativity, Island Records, record companies

Belief and Simon Cowell

I remember each time I used to go to London for the Arista Records marketing meetings Simon Cowell would call me in to his office to find out what my people thought of his records, the ones I was promoting to regional radio. Even though we’d discuss these same records at the marketing meetings he knew they wouldn’t receive the attention he wanted because other records would be discussed too, and some at greater length. He wanted the one on one’s and who was I to argue, there’s no point working with people who aren’t keen to vibe you up on their projects. As much as he would offer his observations he’d always listen, Simon was a good listener. As I said in the book, I told him records like Zig and Zag, The Teletubbies and WWF wouldn’t get radio while he was still telling me they were hits, even if they wouldn’t play them. We were both right! Simon knew the power of television in selling records before anyone. The records he was putting out would get TV exposure, kids watched TV and bought records by people they saw on television.It was a lesson in culture, if you were on television the perception was you were famous. If it was good, crap or indifferent you were still famous.

When he moved from Arista to RCA he had a point to prove. The management at Arista at the time said they could no longer justify the overhead. They were basically saying, you’re an A and R guy and you aren’t giving us the hits we need, off you go. Considering that at the time I doubt he was earning a huge wage and only occupied a small office with his PA, Vanya that was quite some rejection. By his own admission he never saw eye to eye with the hierarchy at Arista then so I suppose it was only a matter of time. Still,  a great lesson in getting a knock back and rising far far above it. He moved out of one part of BMG in to another and had hits with the same records his previous employers had turned down! That has to be the greatest confidence boost of all,  and then passing people in the corridors weeks later who didn’t believe in you. There was hardly had to tell them you were right and they were wrong.

It’s stuff like that that makes him what he is. Whether it was with me or the head of a record company, he made people believe in him because of how he believed in himself. Sometimes the look on his face was amazing, I don’t think he realized it but he would look at you as if you’d lost the plot. ‘How can you say that?’  he’d utter when you looked at him, almost apologizing in advance of what you knew people were going to say about these ‘non radio friendly ‘records. I loved the banter because I was doing what I was paid to do which was , as much as getting his artists exposure telling him the truth! If they hated it and wouldn’t play it then why was I to blame for that? In a way you have to understand that an A and R man has to believe in his artists and he did. Even though they were glove puppets, burly wrestlers who grunted a lot and The Teletubbies, the bastard love children of Mr Blobby. I have to admit I too couldn’t understand why he wasn’t believing that these media people weren’t believing in his artists.

Personally I never saw a threat to the legacies of Dylan, Elvis and The Beatles by Simon Cowell. I loved it because he always kept you on your toes, I was paid to be accountable and I was accounting. Secretly I was shit scared of my credibility with my radio people though. I’d spent  a lifetime trying to build a reputation on the quality of the artists that I was promoting.

Filed under: About The Engine Room, Opportunity, PR, View from the room, Arista Records, BMG, Simon Cowell

5ive to Westlife

It was late 1990’s and Simon Cowell had had success in the UK with a boy band  called 5ive. My promotion company handled their regional promotion for the duration and had them out doing interviews and the like. They’d had a number of hits and now Simon was approaching the arena of ‘manufactured pop,’ something he’d experienced with Sinitta much earlier but never with a level of consistency. And he was about to do what only he thought possible, take it over. He’d seen what his future business partner Simon Fuller had achieved with The Spice Girls and nearer to home what his BMG colleagues had done with Take That. Secretly he wished he’d had that to get his teeth in to, publicly he made everyone know he would! Even earlier than that he greatly admired what Pete Waterman, his earliest mentor had done with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. Waterman created stars, in a pure pop way where he and his cohorts, Aitkin and Stock wrote the songs, produced the records, styled the artists and groomed them for the media. And for Simon Cowell the world beckoned, he wanted to create bigger stars. More of them and more of the time.

Loius Walsh who had managed the Irish boy band Boyzone approached him with the new act he was managing with Ronan Keating, their singer. They were called Westlife. Boy bands were starting to have an impact on the charts and Simon’s determination alone, together with what I already knew about him told me we were in for a full on, slam dunk, brain battering of how we WERE going to make this huge. not my cup of tea but hardly the point.

One morning in who cares when I was sat at my desk when the phone went. ‘Simon Cowell for you.’ came the holler across my office from Lee my right hand man. ‘Hi Tony it’s Vanya, I have Simon for you.’ I’d never had a problem with Simon, I always liked the guy, like I said previously he kept us promotion people on our toes. Sure we argued and agreed to disagree but I’ve never rated anyone in my life where you haven’t had a disagreement.  If you don’t believe how do you expect anyone else to? Simon demanded his records got attention and as I always I told him, if people thought they were crap he needed to know that. He wasn’t changing, and neither the fuck was I, I’d managed to survive the previous 15 years without him and my credibility was seriously being challenged by The Teletubbies and Zig and Zag. Frankly I didn’t rate them as songwriters, I much preferred Dylan. I knew he wasn’t calling to see if I’d had a good weekend. It was even previous to the marketing meeting and my hearing Westlife, so the conversation was one way. How could I defend, criticize, applaud anything I hadn’t heard. One nil to Simon Cowell.

To be continued, miss it at your peril!

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, record companies, Risk, View from the room

More exciting days of radio

The glorious days of radio and the pirates seem to come and go all too quickly, but what a memorable time it was for all of us that had the opportunity to experience those rebels at sea doing what they passionately believed in, giving us the chance to hear great music. All day every day.

Sadly the Marine Offences Act became law at midnight on August 14th 1968, and battle as they did, the pirates slowly, one by one sank.  In 1968 the UK’s national ‘official’ station Radio One launched off the back of the demise of the pirates. After crushing any competition it wasn’t going to be hard for them, the public had been left with nothing.  They were owned by the BBC and they were funded by license payer’s money. Everyone who had a TV license was contributing to radio, whether they liked it or not.

Then the independent radio stations started to spring up.  Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, BRMB in Birmingham, Radio Clyde in Glasgow, and Capital Radio in London were four of the first ones.  Radio One poached some of the pirate DJ’s, guys like John Peel and Tony Blackburn, and  Johnny Walker, a pirate through and through and one who stayed loyal even when they were banned. I often find it hard trying to explain to people just what pirate radio sounded like back then but it’s so very hard. All I know is that there never has and never will be anything quite like it ever again. Even as they were sinking they still sounded as new and as fresh as the day they were born. It was revolutionary then and it’s still revolutionary now.

Filed under: Opportunity, View from the room, commercial radio, pirate radio

Superbowl Superboss

Tampa is awash with Superbowlites, they’re everywhere and all to see the men with big shoulders running around shouting until eventually throwing an odd shaped ball out of the ground. Everyone jumps up, play stops……. and an entire new team runs on. I don’t understand American football and I don’t think I ever will.

Nevertheless it’s popular. The adds run at $3 million for a 30 second commercial and sadly they were all booked pre recession……$100,000 per second! Rhianna played the other night, The Eagles last night, there’s Fleetwood Mac, Puff Daddy, whoops P.Diddy who turned up in St Pete early this morning for a party. Snoop is snooping around, it’s all going on. Meanwhile I’m checking out Fox Soccer Channel and I think Wigan on the box will do just fine, no problem…..leave ’em all to paaaaaaaaarty.

…….Oh and then of course there’s The Boss, the man who knows about as much about the game as me, Bruce Springsteen. He’s turned it down a million times but Boss times are hard and like he boldly admits, he has a new album out. There’s no fee but they’ll cover expenses, nice, him and Patti get a hotel room… but then again the audience for his 12 minute half time show is a billion! No need for a sweat drenched 3 hour show. Boss move by Boss man. Nice work if you can get it.

Bruce did a press conference on Thursday and no suprise, it was all over everywhere………it was the first he’d done since 1987 and the media lapped it up. Brucey boy seemed in good spirits and I did like his honesty about not being a football fan and wanting to shamlessly plug his new album. One thing both he and Miami Steve said got me thinking. They said they came out of an era when the music was brilliant and the artists set a very high standard……..and they felt it their job to maintain those standards, they wanted to be great. It’s a wonderful philosophy, admire you’re peers but at the same time try and emulate them.

Springsteen has worked relentlesly for several decades to be where he is. He shunned CBS’s (now Sony) hype campaign and the posters that claimed ‘I have seen the future of rock n roll and it is Bruce Springsteen’ He hated it, he demanded they take them all down. As was the case with his heroes and when he was growing up, he wanted to be judged on merit and not some overhyped record company campaign. He was right, he was more than a commodity, he had a vision and he wasn’t prepared to compromise.The artists that have survived are the ones who had a say in their career, they too had a vision and weren’t prepared to stand back and let the record company turn them in to what they thought they should be, and create something that would make their job easier….make them marketable. They had belief and they had guts and if was going to take time then so be it. It worked then but they won’t let it work now, they all watched as everything came tumbling down. They pushed the self destruct button while blaming everyone apart from themselves.They knew it all.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, record companies, Bruce Springsteen, CBS, Superbowl