It has to be Your relationship with fans, not your label’s. Ask Imogen Heap.
xR
http://www.thehuxcapacitor.wordpress.com

I was hoping this would spark a little debate! You and Rich both bring up good points. And, of course the CEO of Warner Australia and the Chairman of ARIA is well-versed in the art of PR.

It would be interesting to bring up the often unfair agreements they offer artists in conversation. In a section of the original interview that I didn’t reprint St. John says this:

“That relationship between the fan and the music is absolutely sacred, and it’s what drives our entire business at every level.”

“The job of the industry is to facilitate that relationship and make it enjoyable, seamless, and rewarding for everybody involved, and to not get in the way of that process any more than we have to. And as much as possible, to add value.”

The question that I would ask him is this: how do you reconcile that statement with the way artists are so often treated by the major record labels?

Ultimately, intentions don’t mean much unless they produce action. It’s still encouraging to hear someone in his position articulate these things.

1) “Often the people criticizing do not have a full understanding of the inner workings of big conglomerate music companies.” – Although this may be true, do you really need to be an expert on how record companies operate to know that their models have more often than not exploited artists and taken unfair portions of revenues? Do you need to be an expert on power generation to know that coal burning power plants are an out moded technology that pollute and should be replaced with innovative non-polluting sustainable technologies?

2) “if anyone bothered to come look at the people that work at a record label, and the work they actually do, they’d realize that there is actually a group of quite dedicated people trying to make their artists successful.” – This is a classic argument that is used by every corporate PR person, from virtually any business where corporate tyranny exists. Its never the people working for the firm…its the corporation itself when you view its activity in totality.

Get my full reaction at http://www.studiomanifesto.ca

I won’t go on, I’ve made it clear which side of the fence I’m on. I for one would be keen to see integration between old “industry” and new music strategies with independents, however it’s further complicated by the relatively closed shops (in the UK at least) of radio and TV.

I for one am looking forward to hearing the outcomes of today’s debate in London about file-sharing. Please feel free to share my files wherever you want by the way:
http://www.hopeandsocial.wordpress.com/about

Thought you might dig this reply from Ed when I showed him your commentary.

“Bloody hell Andrew, what have we done? I’m attracting positive and sympathetic feedback from the blogosphere. Where will this madness end?

It’s nice to see a more measured perspective. We’re actually not evil …. we’re just cursed with being the incumbents in a rapidly changing world.

Cheers

Ed”