Nerd Beef! Idolator vs. Listening Post

Today has been largely about EMI. First, we reported that the venerable music behemoth, which has scared off acts like Radiohead and lost over a billion dollars in the first quarter of the year, will sell music through airport kiosks. Then music blog Idolator posted a rant arguing we don’t know anything about the music […]
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IdolatorToday has been largely about EMI. First, we reported that the venerable music behemoth, which has scared off acts like Radiohead and lost over a billion dollars in the first quarter of the year, will sell music through airport kiosks. Then music blog Idolator posted a rant arguing we don't know anything about the music business.

We weren't the only targets; BoingBoing also made the cut.

In a Monday diatribe called "'Wired' Blogger Not Afraid to Look Stupid," Idolator called me out for Friday's post, "EMI Badly Wounded, Bleeds a Billion." It singled out this argument:

EMI's music group is in trouble. The losses of Radiohead, Macca, the Stones and others have left gaping holes where steady revenue streams used to be, and it is going to be hard to replace them. Throw in increasing threats to the licensing division from evolving tastes and increased downloading, illegal and otherwise, and it could be that EMI may be the first of the big four majors to be sent down to the minor leagues.

Idolator's beef begins with our assumption that future albums from Radiohead, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and other ex-EMI talent would be profitable. It ends by branding BoingBoing, Listening Post and other "online nerds" who think the music business sorely needs an upgrade as freeloading dolts. That's a lot of targets:

The money isn't in future Paul McCartney records, but in past ones. And due to the onerous record company practices that BoingBoing and its ilk love to decry, EMI owns the catalogs of all those artists, which will continue to be profitable into the foreseeable future. In other words, the things about the record industry that online nerds constantly present as negatives are the only things keeping it afloat.

Where to start? Being called stupid or a nerd is silly enough, for I am neither. Listening Post's Eliot Van Buskirk tackled the other issues with his own questions.

"How can Idolator argue that losing those artists isn't a big deal?" he asked in a series of hilarious instant messages we shared on the minor feud. "Do they think that major labels are supposed to atrophy into back-catalog licensing companies and cease being active labels?"

this audio or video is no longer availableIt seems today's answer is yes, judging by his recently filed report on EMI and the hopefully profitable airport kiosk business. And I would add that if the controversial, excellently-named Guy Hands and his private-equity vehicles that took over EMI had an interest in continuing as a music label, they wouldn't have cited the changing music marketplace, EMI's unnecessary expenditures, imploding "artist profitability" and the label's "traditional" way of working with talent as reasons for posting a $1.2 billion scarlet L.

In sum, I may not know as much about the inner workings of one major label as this particular Idolator writer, but I know private equity groups well enough. They like numbers – black numbers – and not bands, revered or otherwise. They can see well enough that their only gainer was the licensing arm, so it's reasonable to assume that the label arm could get chopped off. That said, licensing will not save EMI, especially as an active label, so my argument that EMI could be the first of the remaining majors to fracture still stands.

Keep swinging, Idolator. We understand your desire to call people names and these weird accusations just might earn you a little extra traffic. But keep your muddled mitts off of BoingBoing. They were pulling traffic and shaping culture long before you were a pipe dream in Gawker's head.

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