Small labels sign older artists
Yesteryear's stars aren't on MTV, but they're not all exiled to obscurity, either.
By Jim Farber
New York Daily News
December 22, 2002
The music business puts pop stars out to pasture every day. The moment they lose their youthful glow and commercial clout, most get bounced from the major-label league.
Lately, though, various recording and demographic trends have collided to counter this woeful tradition. A few labels have built significant parts of their business plans around giving a second chance to older artists who still can whip up vital work.
In the past two years, Artemis Records has taken in such major-label refugees as the Pretenders, Steve Earle, Warren Zevon and Rickie Lee Jones. Nonesuch has relocated castoffs Emmylou Harris, Wilco, Randy Newman and Joni Mitchell. iMUSIC rescued Tom Tom Club, Johnny Marr, Cracker and John Doe, while Sanctuary Records has given just that to the Pet Shop Boys and King Crimson.
The parent company of Sanctuary (CMC International) pioneered the trend by signing a host of dumped hair-metal bands, from Dokken to Poison, in the mid-1990s. According to Artemis chief Danny Goldberg, a key factor in the trend has been the consolidation of the record business over the past few years.
"We've had a contraction from six to five major labels, and in the process a lot of artists got dropped -- some of whom are still really creative," he says.
Lost their advocates
Consolidation put many seasoned label executives out of work, too, leaving lots of longtime artists without benefactors.
Meanwhile, the lean and mean labels that were left came under the scrutiny of ever-larger conglomerates, which have demanded huge sales quickly as marketing costs surged.
"The system just wasn't working for a lot of older artists," says Marc Geiger, head of iMUSIC. "The break-even point for marketing an album was going up to between 500,000 and 800,000 copies sold, which is a lot of albums for a mature artist to hit every time."
By contrast, the indie labels could go for niche sales as low as 100,000 records, according to Goldberg. Or 10,000, for Geiger's label. "We make our deals based on a worst-case sales scenario," the iMUSIC chief says. "All we have to do is hit those numbers and we're in a profit place."
As compensation for the more modest advances that Geiger's company offers, artists receive higher royalties. Stars have been attracted by those numbers, while, at the same time, they've been repelled by a belief that major labels have been shifty in their accounting.
Marketed differently
Still, the companies that snap up older stars face a marketing battle. Major video exposure, prime retail space and commercial radio play usually are off-limits. So they concentrate on things like direct TV advertising. Older fans, after all, spend far more time gazing at the tube than cruising the record aisles.
Mature stars also can land air time on "The Late Show With David Letterman," "The Tonight Show" and on PBS and National Public Radio.
The Internet spreads the message, too, as do print media, which lack the instant-response pressures that prompt mainstream radio stations to take few chances. In addition, experienced artists often have extensive touring potential, because fan bases are drawn to their material.
Better yet, older artists don't have to worry much about two practices that sap sales from younger stars -- CD burning and file-sharing.
Nonetheless, older artists face the challenge of battling their own histories each time they put out something fresh. Listeners often are reluctant to let their heroes change.
"It's always easier to get someone to relive their memories than to pay for something new," Goldberg explains.
Of course, the artists' current work also may be sub-par.
"I went to see Paul McCartney on this last tour, and it was a very emotional experience," Geiger says. "But when he did his new songs, they were terrible and the audience was bored."
Older and better
But some older artists' new material beats the odds.
Fiftysomething stars James Taylor, Santana and Bruce Springsteen have enjoyed lofty chart positions, healthy sales and critical acclaim recently.
"You have all these good rock artists who are over 50 now," says the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde. "Given the fact that classical composers like Schubert and Mozart died in their 30s, rock is more of an old man's game these days than is classical music."
Such successes are harder to envision for older hip-hop performers. That genre has been especially tied to youth and the zeitgeist. Yet Geiger is betting against that view by signing such senior rappers as Sir Mix-A-Lot and MC Lyte.
"Hip-hop is in a different place than it was," he says. "It's now deserving of a place where artists can keep putting out work even when the trend and scene they came out of is over."
While aging artists have to be realistic about their current sales potential, Geiger says many are not. "There is resentment over the fact that all the great work they did in the past does not count."
But there's reason to believe the deep-seated prejudice against new music from old stars may one day erode. There's an underexploited market of boomers who identify strongly with music but simply need to be schooled in the potent stuff still coming from stars of advancing years. It's the work of the indie labels to nudge them along.
"Music has its own energy," Goldberg believes. "When it's really good -- no matter how old the artist -- it defies the odds and breaks through."
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