"Hello. I'm calling from ***** at the BBC. We want to do something on Mariah Carey including a magazine with her new record and we wondered if we could talk to you about it."
"Tell me what you want me to say and I'll tell you whether I'll say it."
"Why are the record company doing it?"
"In the hope that people will buy the album rather than just downloading the odd track, I imagine."
"Surely Mariah Carey doesn't need to do that to sell records?"
"If she's like most people in the record business she's selling barely half of what she sold ten years ago so I think she'll try anything. And why shouldn't she?"
"It's a magazine with adverts in it. Isn't this just a barefaced attempt to make money?"
"What's wrong with making money? Isn't it the music business?"
"Do you know anyone else I could call?"
This must be the price you pay for being the BBC's "go to" man on all things relating to the music business.
ReplyDeleteI imagine there was pause between your answer; Isn't it the music business and their final question!
ReplyDeleteYou need to be more indignant about these millionaire pop stars fleecing us poor plebs if you want to be on the BBC David.
If the conversation had continued you'd have no doubt got the following line too: "I'm afraid in the current climate we can't of course pay you for getting out of bed early and filling our airtime with you thirty-plus years of hard-earned wisdom in the music and publishing industry..."
ReplyDeleteSupposing Magazine gave away a free Mariah Carey with *their* next CD? Any takers? Yeah? No?
ReplyDeleteI could almost - almost - understand the questioning if it was about an act like Radiohead (and even then only 17 year olds should get outraged over a band "selling out") but Mariah Carey? I would have thought a free magazine was a rather excellent bit of marketing for a singer like her. You know, one who regularly appears in glossy magazines (and probably has her own perfume) anyway.
ReplyDeleteYou should have concluded the call with "Isn't your employment at the BBC a barefaced attempt to make money?".
ReplyDeleteMs Carey quoted in the Times last week:
ReplyDelete“I don’t care if the rock-band person thinks, ‘Oh, I’m a sellout’. Well, guess what? They’re a sellout anyway for going to a record company. I’m sorry — you are. You want to just play in bands in bars? Then do that. Or play on the streets. And if someone throws you some dollars, then you can go get a soda.”
I love her. Really, I do. My favoutite diva by a mile.
Ms Carey quoted in the Time slast week:
ReplyDelete“I don’t care if the rock-band person thinks, ‘Oh, I’m a sellout’. Well, guess what? They’re a sellout anyway for going to a record company. I’m sorry — you are. You want to just play in bands in bars? Then do that. Or play on the streets. And if someone throws you some dollars, then you can go get a soda.”
Lovable.
The trouble with stories like this one is you feel like saying to the radio producer "do you want the Janet and John version or the truth?" The J & J version is that this is a perfectly sensible commercial initiative and the only people who'd sneer at it are snobs.
ReplyDeleteThe truth, which is more complex and interesting, is that the music business's track record on doing anything other than just selling recorded sound, in this case a magazine, is absolutely appalling. A year ago they were all boldly claiming the future of music was ad-funded. Having tried it and found out just how difficult it is, they're not so bold any more.
I heard some chap on Chris Evans' show, (hosted by Simon Mayo tonight), talking about Mariah's CD-with-magazine-with-adverts. Was that going to be the gig they wanted you for?
ReplyDeleteThe feller said much the same as you have by the way, but with a lot more artist and product placement. A bravura performance, even Mayo commented on it.
And there you were tonight! It's like, like a, a premonition, man.
ReplyDelete