The long-rumored agreement between Madonna and concert-promotion monster Live Nation is about to come to fruition, with a $120 million deal between the two–and Madonna’s departure from her current label, Warner Music Group–all but certain. The Wall Street Journal reports that the deal is for 10 years, and it’ll encompass three studio albums, tours, merch, and licensing; Madonna still has to release one album and a greatest-hits package through WMG, which will also continue to own all of her recordings for the past 20 years. So is this deal yet another nail in the coffin of major labels? Maybe, although it looks more like a frostily amicable divorce between Madonna and WMG than anything else.
And that’s because Madonna currently makes a freaking mint from touring, while her album sales have comparatively languished. Last year’s Confessions On A Dance Floor has sold 1.6 million copies in the US, while the soy latte-praising American Life hasn’t even broken the million-sold mark; in comparison, she made roughly $195 million from hitting the road last year alone, according to Billboard. True, whether she’ll remain a draw for the next 10 years is something of a gamble for Live Nation–especially as she gets older and relies more on her backup dancers for the high-wire sexing–but I’m thinking Warner Music Group’s decision to say “see ya” and give up the rights to distribute her forthcoming records was probably a smart one, especially if that crummy Pharrell collaboration is anything to go by. They’ll still control the rights to/make whatever money can still be made from selling records off her biggest hits–including The Immaculate Collection and whatever best-of package gets dreamed up as a getting-out-of-her-contract scheme–and Live Nation will be able to (biz-speak alert!) vertically integrate its venues with one of said venues’ biggest draws. Everybody wins! Except probably people who want to see her in concert, since they’ll likely have to sell an egg or two in order to finance the cost of a nosebleed seat.
Madonna Heads for Virgin Territory [WSJ]
BofA: The Madonna Deal Explained in 72 Words [Silicon Alley Insider]
She’s about to hit her Elvis 1970s arena tour phase if she hasn’t already. But hopefully with a better ending.
Feels like I’m GOING to lose my mi-hi-hiiind!
Also, FWIW, WMG has been mighty pissed over the years about the flop that was/is Maverick Records, Madonna’s vanity label and a joint venture with WMG.
@Ned Raggett: that’d be kinda awesome if she went out like Elvis though… fat, drugged up, and found on the bathroom floor.
@DHMBIB: aside from Alanis and (personal favorite) Me’shell Ndegeocello, none of the acts signed to Maverick had any sort of careers, right? I mean, Mr. Dalvin from Jodeci had an album on Maverick. Enough said.
Not sure how many “Madonna concert ticket buyers” actually have eggs – unless you count the tiny ones inside their adopted Chinese children.
@brainchild: The Deftones, Michelle Branch, Prodigy and Candlebox all sold more records than Me’shell Ndegeocello. But yeah, none of those were real franchise artists, just a platinum plaque or two and then they ran out of commercial steam, and a ton of Maverick acts that completely bombed and probably cost the company a lot of money. The real problem with the label, though, is that looking at its roster, save for a couple Mirwais and William Orbit records, there’s pretty much no indication of what artist was supposedly in charge of this artist-run imprint.
@brainchild: I had to go to Wikipedia to find a list of artists, as Maverick’s “official site” has some annoying flash thingy that says “coming soon” and keeps annoyingly looping. Anyway, Wikipedia lists Michelle Branch and her “side project” The Wreckers in the currently signed artists list. IMHO, Michelle Branch qualifies as an artist that has had something like “a career”, as Branch’s two Maverick releases [The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper] both went platinum, and The Wreckers’ Stand Still, Look Pretty went gold, stalling out around 765K. Also, there was that whole duet-with-Carlos Santana thing.
Also, Stand Still, Look Pretty — damn fine record.
But your point is spot on. A lot of Maverick’s catalog looks to be film soundtracks, US releases from European DJs, and the like. None of the other current or former artists leaps out at me as a “big name”.
Also, Lillix.
@GovernmentNames: @DHMBIB: Also, I had forgotten that WB/WMG actually bought Madonna out of the partnership back in 2004. As I recall now, at the time the speculation was that WB had decided that Madonna and her manager had utterly failed, and WB wanted a chance to run Maverick like a “real” label.
It’s funny how perceptions change - in the late ’90s, post-Alanis, everybody thought Madge looked like a friggin’ genius for founding a vanity label with actual sales. (Remember: most of these artist labels are way, way more pitiful than Maverick. Remember Breaking Records, the Hootie and the Blowfish label? Michael Jackson’s MJJ?) Between the first two Alanis joints and Madge’s ’90s albums, which were all distributed on Maverick, nevermind the one-hit Candleboxes and such, the label probably has one of the best track records of an artist label save Frank Sinatra’s Reprise. And yeah, this decade the label’s been a massive stiff, but after the earlier, more-than-decent 10-year run, I’d look at that glass as half-full, myself.
All that said, I agree with Maura that Warners was right to walk away. Confessions (which I loved) was a deserved comeback, but her remaining recorded output is going to continue to look like the last two records – one flop, one semi-hit – at best. I remembered thinking when Sony stole Aerosmith away from Geffen in the mid-’90s, at a similar point in their careers (the guys were all on the brink of 50 or just past), that it was nuts to think they could turn a profit with these geezers – as with Madge this year, at the time they still owed Geffen a studio record and a hits package. I think that deal ended up working out for Sony, because even though the post-’93 Aerosmith albums (Nine Lives, Just Press Play) sucked, they sold pretty well.
But Aerosmith has a classic-rock career to hang on, which will get heshers and Boomers to give their new stuff a try; all Madonna has, as she crosses the big five-oh, is her touring career, and that’s going to turn into a Cher-style situation pretty soon: great attendance, glitzy but less-impressive production values, minimal new-music sales. I’m no Bronfman-and-Lyor fan, but props to them because they made the right call.
I think it’s a smart move on all sides. I also would not be surprised if after her next album, she goes off into huge selling ballad territory and starts to really pander to big crossover audiences in her 50s. It’s Madonna, she still has a ton of tricks up her veiny arms! Also, she may have unbelievable longview and could be planning a revenge plot against clear channel for completely NOT playing all the amazing singles off ‘confessions’ in the states.
@dennisobell: Madonna always has been first and foremost a European-style dancefloor diva. Euro-style disco music — think Kylie, and Cher — just doesn’t sell well in the US. But Madonna’s trick was that she made music just coventionally-pop-y and hook-y enough to get it on the radio, MTV, fans’ CD players, etc. She’ll always have her catalog — which will be the foundation of a great live show — and new music of this flavor will win over new and current fans when they hear it in the discos — fans who will go see those shows. Think, Michael Jackson. But those fans will have no interest in buying her new CDs for one dance club hit each. Think, Michael Jackson.
Madonna’s biggest challenge has always been her ambition to be even bigger, more mainstream, taken more seriously as an entertainer and not just a disco diva. Think, her movie career, her book, and her later-career “soy latte-praising” [good one, Maura] music. Some of this stuff is very good [I love "Don't Tell Me" and "What It Feels Like For A Girl" from Music], but it completely misses her fan base and is avoided by non-fans, many of whom see her as a washed-up disco diva, others of whom think that they are the ones who are too “mainstream” or “adult” to be buying a “Madonna” record. Madonna just doesn’t seem to have whatever it would take to turn her into a McCartney or a Stewart.
So, yeah, this deal makes a lot of sense for everyone. WMG unloads an artist clearly on the downside of her CD-selling career, and won’t have to deal with Jackson-like accusations that they are not marketing her new stuff aggressively enough. Live Nation gets a marquee entertainer with a proven record of selling out mega-venues. And Madonna gets a boat-load of money.
zomg rainbows