Sony Music Thinks Writing An Annoying James Blunt Song Counts As Executive Experience

Proving that learning something from previous mistakes isn’t really the way the corporate world works, Sony is hiring British musician Amanda Ghost (not to be confused with her band, Amanda Ghost) to run Epic Records, home of Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse, Jennifer Lopez, Sara Bareilles, and the Skunk Anansie catalog. Ghost seems to recognize that she lacks the general qualifications to be the president of a significant subsidiary of a global corporation, but hey, she’ll bring the same creative verve that she brought to co-writing Jordin Sparks’ “Tattoo” and James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”!

“I’m not a conventional choice as a music business executive,” Ghost admitted in a statement. “[But] I’m here to draw on my experiences as an artist, songwriter and producer to make the new and existing artists signed to Epic as brilliant and successful as possible.”

It took me a little while to figure out why someone thought this was a good idea, but then I realized that there may not be too many people more qualified than Ghost who are left at Sony Music. Even when things were going somewhat well in the music biz, labels were axing employees left and right in order to buoy stock prices, so by now, it’s entirely possible that the label’s offices are staffed by seven interns and a stack of dusty Augustana promos. One wonders if the industry’s brain drain is at least partially responsible for the constant stream of bad ideas that seem to come from within, and whether or not Ghost will break the string of artists moving to the executive suite and failing. Just think, if she did, she could become the label’s “Glory Girl”.

Singer-songwriter to run Epic Records [Guardian]