NEAR TRUTHS BY I.B. BAD
And though it wasn’t always the case, in today’s major-label landscape, British executives are excelling as the heads of U.S.-based companies, a feat few Americans have even attempted with U.K. labels since Maurice Oberstein headed CBS and PolyGram in the ’80s. The list of successful British imports starts with UMG ruler Lucian Grainge (who was given his first job by Oberstein at then-CBS-owned pubbery April Blackwood) and includes Columbia’s Rob Stringer, Capitol Music Group’s Steve Barnett and RCA’s Peter Edge.
For dramatic proof of the impact expat British label heads are having on the modern-day industry, one need look no further than the frontline marketshare competition year-to-date, with Columbia (9.2%) and CMG (7.4%) holding the top two positions. Stringer and Barnett were the joint heads of Columbia during the label’s historic run behind Adele’s 21, followed by the arrival of One Direction, the most recent U.K. group to score a massive worldwide breakthrough.
In a fascinating twist of fate, the careers of Barnett and 1D manager Richard Griffiths have been interlinked since the early ’80s, when Barnett served as AC/DC’s manager and Griffiths was the Australian band’s agent. After Griffiths was named President of Epic in the U.S. in 1994, he brought in Barnett to head up international, and following Griffiths’ departure in late ’97, Barnett was named GM under Polly Anthony, taking over as President in 2004 following Anthony’s exit.
Meanwhile, Griffiths had returned to London to head up BMG’s U.K. operation, where he worked with Simon Cowell, who was doing pop A&R for RCA. When Simon Fuller approached Cowell about becoming part of his new TV show Pop Idol, Griffiths encouraged him to take the job. The show took off in its first season in 2001, whereupon Cowell became one of the original judges on spinoff show American Idol while doing double duty on Pop Idol. In 2001, Griffiths took a job running the international office of The Firm for Jeff Kwatinetz and a year later co-founded Modest Management, which seemed aptly named until 2006, when Cowell asked Griffiths to manage the acts spun off from his show The X Factor at the beginning of its third season in the U.K. Five years later, the show spawned One Direction, bringing Griffiths back into business with Barnett as they formulated Columbia’s marketing plan for the group’s debut album with Stringer.
Fast-forward two years, and the two old friends are once again partnering on a project—the Griffiths-managed Aussie group 5 Seconds of Summer, who built a rabid young fanbase as the opening act on 1D’s 2013 tour, and whose debut EP will be released on Capitol next Tuesday, with first-week estimates running as high as 200k. This ongoing narrative reveals the six degrees of separation between AC/DC and 5SOS, but it also leads to an intriguing question: Can these two heavy-hitting cricketeers combine to knock another one out of the park?
One Direction will join the exalted company of The Stones, Bruce Springsteen and U2 on its 2014 tour, generating a mind-boggling 3.8m tickets sold. Contributing to that total are three sellout dates at the Rose Bowl, each of which will gross $4m.
While Sony Music U.K. has obviously benefited greatly from having 1D on the roster, the company has lagged behind its consistently successful Universal counterpart in terms of breaking new acts, which is one of the reasons Nick Gatfield lost his job. In the search for Sony U.K.’s next Chairman/CEO, an offer is rumored to have been made to another respected executive, but no deal has yet been announced. From their vantage points at 550 Madison, Stringer and Edge are helping to identify candidates, underscoring the critical importance of this job in Sony’s big picture. Stringer has a personal interest in filling it with the right person, having held it himself before moving to Sony U.S.
Names in the rumor mill: Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, Max Hole, Edgar Berger, David Joseph, Frank Briegman and Martin Mills.
