I don’t know because I’ve been out of it for a while, so I’m not sure what the differences are. I know the size is different. I think there’s been a major cutback and I think the approach is different. Record companies can’t spend the kind of money that they spent before because of the shrinking marketplace. I’m not sure the marketplace has shrunk as much as sales have shrunk based on other phenomena.

But because of that record companies are in some ways maybe smarter because they have certain limitations now. A half a million dollar video may be a thing of the past except for a handful of artists and how you market a record is now really important because you’ve got to get a real bang for your buck. So they may be more creative, who knows?

I do know that the pressure is good and bad. The good part is what we just discussed, it makes you really think about what you’re doing. The bad part, of course, is that you’re dealing in a situation where you’re not at ease because you’re part of a corporation and if you’re not in the top two or three echelons of the corporation you’re not treated the same. I saw that at Warner’s. I was lucky because when we were at Time Warner, Warner Communications we were a cash cow so they loved us. When you walked in, as scary as it was to be in a corporate meeting, you had a lot of interested people and it turned out always to be much easier and much better than I had imagined because it used to scare the living shit out of me.

But now it’s different. People that are working at major labels aren’t necessarily the number one guys, and most of the people that have been at major labels and are still at major labels understand that. They’re not the number one guy anymore, so that makes it difficult, it makes it harder. There’s much more pressure and that’s sad. And corporations and creative people, it’s always an interesting sort of dynamic that probably isn’t really workable or if it’s workable it has to be done with the right people, the right group of people. They really have to understand, and the right creative people, too, have to appropriation is about.

So there’s that dynamic that needs to sort itself out. I’m not sure if it has or not. But I think what is happening, what potentially can happen based on, again, stuff that we don’t know about, technology and where technology is going to take us. We don’t know. We don’t know what it’s going to mean to major labels or independent labels. I think independent labels right now have a better chance of doing stuff because they can get their stuff out there, they can be heard. There’s some artists that have sold some records and they own it. They own the whole thing so they can make ten bucks a record and if they sell 60,000 records, you can add it up, it’s a lot of money, and it’s a great thing because it allows artists to make their mistakes and take their time and learn.

Ultimately a major label can get your further probably. I think that that’s always been the case because there’s more funds and once the landscape is sorted out the audience is still there, people love music. What’s confusing is that listening to a record isn’t the same as it used to be when I was part of the music business. I think that phenomena of sitting down with ear phones or big speakers and hi-fi’s and stereos and whatever, and sitting and listening to something doesn’t exist the way that it used to. And that takes some of the excitement away from the music business because there’s so many things going on, and there’s so many things going on at the same time.

I mean you watch TV and if you’re watching the news, you’ve got the news and then you’ve got all the stuff that the guy isn’t saying below. I have teenage daughters and when I walk in their room, and they’re into music, they’re listening to music, they’re on their computers, they’re playing video games. So that’s confusing to me because I’m not sure how you sort that out.

People still buy records, people still are interested in records, and whether they’re buying them or stealing them they want music in their lives. So I think the key thing is what it’s always been and the one thing to stay with which is quality. If you have a great record, if you have great music, it’ll get heard, and somebody will grab it, figure out a way to pay for it hopefully, and that’s the goal more so than ever before because there was so much competition. The individual has so many things that they can do DVD’s and movies, etcetera, that it forces companies and individuals, it will force them to really make sure they’re making the best possible music.

[End of audio]