A few weeks ago, I blogged about the troubles Delain were having with corporate interference affecting the release date of their album “We Are The Others”. That story appeared to have a happy ending, but sadly it was just an ill omen for far worse things to come. Now Warner Music Group, who had taken over Delain’s label Roadrunner have closed all Roadrunner’s non-US offices, and fired all the staff. That’s everyone in Europe and Canada who understood prog and metal, known and trusted by the bands. Gone.
This for me sums up everything that’s wrong with the music business. It’s why the majors must die.
The cloth-eared bean-counters at WMG will of course blame “piracy”. Never their own short-sightedness, stupidity and greed.
If you want to know why this matters, look at the artists on Roadrunner’s roster: Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Within Temptation, Dream Theater and Mastodon, and that’s just the start. It’s like a who’s who of the bigger prog and metal bands who are producing original and challenging music. And WMG have just fired everyone who knew and understood that music. The cloth-eared bean-counters of course all keep their jobs, and if you’re a fan of any of the above bands, you have every reason to fear the worst.
The great thing about Roadrunner is it allowed artists space to develop, and saw bands like Opeth and Porcupine Tree achieve significant success on their own terms, in complete contrast to the cookie-cutter approach that has typified the major labels in recent years. Almost all the music I’ve bought in the past 2-3 years that hasn’t been on small indies has been on Roadrunner. And most of that has been by European artists who all now face an uncertain future. As Earache owner Digsby said on Twitter
Some corporate twonk at Warners thinks promoting Machine Head & Opeth can be done just like Linkin Park & Green Day?
I hope as many bands as possible manage to extricate themselves from this – Most of them would be better off now with smaller independent labels who understand their music rather than have their career in the hands of some idiot in a suit on another continent who wants them to sound like Nickelback.
Time for Storm Corrosion to redo the shadow puppet video for “Drag Ropes” with a WMG executive replacing the priest.