guy hands - Idolator

Posts Tagged “guy hands”

the biz

Guy Hands Finally Finds An Exec To Take Over EMI

Starting in October, the new CEO of EMI Records will be Elio Leoni-Sceti, an Italian advertising executive with no experience in the music industry. Terra Firma leader Guy Hands has been looking for someone forward thinking and informed enough to take over EMI's top recorded-music position since buying the company last August, and evidently no one available was more appropriate for the position than a guy who made his name pushing house cleaning supplies for Reckitt Benckiser. Chris Martin must be delighted! Will Leoni-Sceti have the same success with Katy Perry as he did with laundry detergent? Guy Hands sure thinks so! More »

5:00 PM on Mon Jul 7 2008
By Anthony Miccio
223 views, 2 comments

Latest by The Illiterate: This is getting as bad as the movie industry in the late 70s. Soon no one who actually knows about music will work for any of the major labels. more »

ship shape

Five Fun Facts From That EMI Story In The "Times"

Today's New York Times has a lengthy report on Guy Hands' tumultuous tenure as the head of beleaguered label EMI, and it's a pretty dense read, full of corporate politicking and grouchy music-biz types grumbling about Guy Hands' somewhat ham-handed efforts to make a music-business office over in his image. After the jump, five bits from the piece that stuck out for one reason or another. More »

11:30 AM on Mon Jun 16 2008
By Maura Johnston
1,276 views, 6 comments

brother, can you spare a lens flare?

"New York Post" Photo Department Getting A Little Too Guy Hands-On

The photo illustration at left accompanies today's story on Terra Firma chair Guy Hands offering Citigroup help in selling down some $4.9 billion of EMI debt currently held by the bank. (Click to enlarge.) I'm all for sexing up your everyday business stories, but since it's pretty obvious that the jokers at the Post were going more for "accentuating dude's double chin" than "realism," wouldn't grafting his head on top of the Naked Cowboy's body been just as awkward, and about 99 times funnier? [NYP]

10:30 AM on Thu May 29 2008
By Maura Johnston
188 views, 3 comments

Latest by Maura Johnston: @cosmiclove: @owenmeany: yeah, i mean, when jeff leeds goes blog, deadline hollywood daily-style, i'll definitely start sourcing stuff from there. for now, though, brian garrity is the only game in a rapidly depopulating town. more »

EMI is looking at another wave of layoffs in the near-to-immediate future, axing 1,000 jobs as it tries to bring its worldwide headcount down from 4,500 employees to 2,000. A source told the UK's Telegraph that EMI owner/Terra Firma CEO Guy Hands is still looking to make cuts because the company has "more employees generating less revenues than its competitors at Warner Music and Universal." Pretty sure this marks the first time that Warner Music Group has been shown in a relatively efficient light in many, many years. [Telegraph]

1 comment

performance reviews

EMI Chief Not Very Fond Of His A & R Department's Efficiency Rate

New EMI chief Guy Hands hasn't exactly made many friends in his time at the label, and his talent for alienating his employees continued to shine at yesterday's Super Return private equity conference in Munich. When asked about the performance of the company's A & R department, he blasted them, saying that the marketing part of their jobs could be much better handled by "the suits" because their marketing strategies were so bad, taping 50-pound notes to the outside of every CD the company was trying to sell would have not only caused said CDs to fly off the shelves more quickly, it would have been less costly than employing the 260-person-strong talent-scouting department. Hands is promising chart-topping singles from the label by this summer, although one wonders if he's more comfortable making that particular bet because he knows that Coldplay's new album is set to drop in May. [FT]

10:20 AM on Thu Feb 28 2008
By Maura Johnston
1,290 views, 3 comments

Latest by Halfwit: @sparkletone: Yeah, but it's not like he's totally off-base with his statements. Was it last week that we had that article from the former A&R guy about what a crapshoot the whole process was? It didn't even seem as though more »

The Telegraph profiles Guy Hands, the man who's charged himself with attempting to make the record company act more like an actual business: "About a third of the artists who sign with EMI never make an album," he says. "We're going to drop a fair number of them. You've got to get them to a level where you can provide a super service." First the fruit and flowers, and now this! [Telegraph]

Comment

Terra Firma chair Guy Hands will let EMI's remaining employees know about his upcoming strategy for the label in a meeting next Tuesday, although he won't be discussing impending job cuts at the label. Instead, the meeting will focus on such Powerpoint-ready topics as "importance of keeping artists at the heart of what we do", "understanding the needs of the consumer" and "tackling digital challenges." Hope there are at least free donuts! [Times Online via Silicon Alley Insider]