I.B. BAD ON EMI'S
BRAVE NEW WORLD

By all accounts, Elio Leoni-Sceti, EMI’s new CEO and great Italian hope is a brilliant marketer, but history has not been kind to music-business outsiders, who have traditionally failed to grasp the nuances and idiosyncrasies of this complex industry.

The rogues’ gallery of outsiders includes former EMI rulers Eric Nicoli, Jim Fifield and Colin Southgate; BMG’s Strauss Zelnick and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz; Sony Music’s Andy "rootkit" Lack; WMG villains Bob Morgado, Michael Fuchs, Bob Daly and, last but not least, the company’s present CEO.

If a company doesn’t have hit records, of course, it makes no difference who is spearheading it, and that responsibility belongs to Nick Gatfield, who arrived this week, and to Billy Mann, who’s heading up the international A&R effort.

In one of his first major moves, Gatfield is rumored to be bringing in former Island exec Rob Stevenson (whose signings included The Killers, Fall Out Boy and The Bravery) as A&R President of either Virgin or Capitol—a move that is getting the thumbs-up from industryites.

As for Jason Flom, EMI’s other A&R executive with numerous platinum plaques on his office wall, he’s expected to stay on with a new deal along the lines of his former Lava imprint, as his signing Katy Perry becomes one of 2008’s biggest artist-development stories. All of this activity is taking place against the encouraging backdrop of a huge album from Coldplay.