Downtown Records, home of Justice, Santogold, Kid Sister, and many other bands seemingly designed for the blog era’s express-consumption cycle, is moving its distribution from the largely Warner Music Group-owned ADA (with occasional upstreams over to Atlantic) to a deal with the Fonatana distribution arm of Universal Music Group. (The deal beings with the release of this month’s Cold War Kids disc.) Downtown has done well keeping on top of today’s music trends, so whatever avenue gets them the most exposure in retail is clearly in their best interest, but what does this say about WMG, which has seen more than its fair share of artists jumping ship from it these days as well? [Marketwatch]
Downtown Takes The Express Train Away From Warner Music Group
September 5th, 2008 // 3 Comments
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Mostly what it says about WMG is that they’re not willing to pony up suitcases of cash: [www.billboard.com]
If you don’t feel like clicking the link, Fontana and Interscope paid $2.5 mil a three year deal. Downtown’s highest selling artist, Gnarls Barkley, is staying with Atlantic.
Still ADA is like the devil, they could not give a crap about an indie record store unless you are already rolling. My experience is that they are just a big goof ball.
Heh – wait till this blog-friendly label sees how UMG likes to deal with all things digital.