12 Music Week 23.11.12 THE BIG INTERVIEW MARTINGOLDSCHMIDT
“In terms of highlights, signing Madness is unthinkable. I’ve been trying to do that since 2008”
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contract binds with the major label system for years ever since she fell out with her former home, Warner imprint Roadrunner. “I’m assembling people who really understand the importance of taking the big picture, the future, the fans’ experience and the art itself into account, instead of ‘moving units’ with blinders on.” Goldschmidt’s primary motivation is undoubtedly the success of his artists and the health of CV’s bottom line – but the proud indie boss can’t resist enjoying a hunk of schadenfreude when considering the troubling overheads of the major labels versus his prudent setup. Unsurprisingly, he is a vocal critic of Universal’s takeover of EMI Music. The good news for Goldschmidt is that
Cooking’s frugal outlook appears to be paying off: the exec says the label, its artists and its investors have all turned a decent chunk of change in 2012, with sights set high for the coming year…
Marilyn Manson was huge for you here and in the US this year. What was the secret? It’s been amazing. We’ve done 100,000 in the States with Marilyn now on our own label. America’s always really tough for independent labels. Over the years, we’ve lost quite a lot of money learning how to do it there. This year, we’ve sold about 180,000 records in total in the States and made really good money from it – our best year ever. That’s across Manson, The Cult, The Cranberries
and some back catalogue. The artists are happy and so are we. In terms of sales, Manson’s the biggest record we did this year. But in terms of highlights, signing Madness [for recent No.10 album Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da, released on a JV with the band’s own label] is unthinkable. I’ve been trying to do that since 2008.
Your deal with Amanda Palmer was announced after she famously self-financed her record by raising over a million dollars on Kickstarter… Well she didn’t self-finance anything we do! [Laughs] We put in some money!
How did you get her to put pen to paper on your deal? Lots of people assumed she wouldn’t work with a label again… The deal we did with Amanda wasn’t very big at all. We were approached last year and agreed a contract
ABOVE Born Vinyl: Clockwise from top left – Cooking Vinyl have worked with artists including Marilyn Manson, Madness, Reverend & The Makers and The Cranberries in 2012
with her way before she became the headline everyone wanted to write about. That was lovely, but we had no expectation of it. Interestingly, sales of Amanda haven’t been that
great, but I’ve seen her live three times now and the last show she did in London was definitely a candidate for gig of the year. She’s going to come back a play a massive tour [in 2013]. It will translate into sales. She’s going to explode. She’s so brilliant.
Is it difficult to keep the faith in an album like hers when the initial numbers are low? Not at all. It’s easy, because we know it’s going to happen. It’s great to be able to spend a long time developing an artist. It’s going to be fantastic.
Do you expect to see more Kickstarter and Pledge-type campaigns in future? Definitely. She’s the only one who’s raised that kind of money so far - but she really understands that game. She’s simply brilliant in the social media arena. Part of the reason we haven’t sold too many records is that every one of her fans got it through Kickstarter. We’d lost the fanbase’s initial purchases. Amanda was an anomaly, but you’ll see more and more of that Kickstarter stuff.
Isn’t that a frightening prospect for a label? Why? It will be interesting to see how Amanda does her next record… The Kickstarter thing shows how importance of fan engagement. As radio become less important, fan engagement becomes vital.
Do you still need radio? Reverend & The Makers’ Jon McClure seems to spend half his time on Twitter bemoaning the Radio 1 playlist – and you say his album’s made money… We need radio less and less. Jon’s project has been a big success, financially and in terms of that gigs have sold out. He’s had a fantastic year, but it’s niche. But then look at Psy – he did quite well without radio, didn’t he? I suppose radio did pick him up in the end, after 400 million views...
Psy: genuine game-changer or novelty act? There’s been a lot of talk about breaking artists on the internet. He’s the first one that’s done it on a mass level. Everyone on the planet looks at YouTube. It’s becoming the biggest discovery tool there is for new music; it’s overtaking radio in that way. It’s probably the way by which more people listen to music than any other medium. There’s a new game in town.
But are you being rewarded for your content’s popularity on YouTube? We earn money from YouTube, perhaps not as much as we’d like. We earn roughly £5 per 1,000 views.
That’s more than some people have credited YouTube with giving out to rights holders… YouTube are putting a lot of effort into helping people monetise their service. Is it enough money? I don’t know. That’s a big, big question. It’s hard. It’s Google’s business model and they’ve executed it brilliantly. But they are increasing their earnings, and the flow-through is not bad – I think labels get around 60% of the ad revenue on their videos. Maybe it should be a bit more, but there’s not a huge amount to complain about on those splits.
Aa year ago, it seemed almost everyone in the record label world was telling Music Week that YouTube was the big pariah. That doesn’t happen so much anymore… So many people in the industry don’t even realise what’s happening with YouTube, in my honest opinion. They’ve forgotten about it, or are ignoring it. What really interests me is people who complain about Spotify when all their stuff ’s on YouTube and they don’t worry. They could be earning 10 times as much on Spotify. I don’t get that.
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