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2 Music Week 07.12.12 NEWS EDITORIAL


MAMA, we’re all blasé now


ONE MAN IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK sounded even prouder than Prince William: MAMA Group CEO Dean James. The live music exec, who featured in a must-read Music Week


Big Interview late last year, has led a clean-cut management buyout from the ownership of HMV for a cool £7.3m in cash. The deal not only includes prime MAMA assets such as London’s Barfly, Jazz Café and HMV Forum, plus Manchester’s HMV Ritz and The Fly magazine, but a 50% stake in Mean Fiddler. The purchase seems something of a snip, considering that


HMV bought MAMA for £40m more than that pricetag just three years ago. James’ respectful talk of “untangling” the company from HMV’s ownership – as he praised the retailer’s “grace and patience” – suggests that his ambitions for MAMA may have long been truncated by the woes of his overlords. Yet it wasn’t MAMA’s outlay of cash that was most gladdening


aspect of the deal for the industry at large: it was where this chunk of change came from, and the hungry optimism it fuelled.


“I have a suspicion than Lloyds has elected to invest in MAMA’s team more than live music itself”


At the UK Festival Conference in London on Monday, Kilimanjaro’s Stuart Galbraith joked that there was no need for the ‘Emergency Board Meeting’-themed panel on which he appeared. Yet on the same day, YouGov told us that already bleak-looking festival attendance figures were set to slide by another 19% in 2013, despite Glastonbury’s return to the fray. So who should we believe? Forgive me for questioning such a watertight data source as an


online Government poll, but I’ll opt to trust the money-multiplying types at Lloyds Capital Development, who stumped up the millions for James to make his audacious MBO bid. “Live music is a growing and increasingly important sector of


the UK economy,” said LDC investment director Alistair Pendleton when announcing the deal. MAMA is certainly buying into that confidence: as a direct


result of being freed from the gloom of HMV’s financials and being fed LDC’s profit-seeking moolah, James has now laid out plans to expand the group’s festival and venue business into new territories and breath new life into existing assets. Perhaps James realises something that music industry types,


cowered by a decade of pain, sometimes forget: positive thinking, large-scale ambitions and a refusal to be too brow-beaten by opaque data-spawning naysayers often attracts the right kind of attention. Just ask Apple. I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn’t the ‘growing live music business’ so dismissed by YouGov that LDC are most excited to go into business with - but the particularly brave, bold vision of Dean James and his allies. “In supporting the MBO of MAMA Group we believe we are backing the best management team and the most recognised, successful brand in the business,” added Pendleton. You often hear the music industry is a ‘people business’. Those


who make profits from carefully speculating their wealth bet on people, too - and they seem to like them loud and proud. Tim Ingham, Editor


Do you have views on this column? Feel free to comment by emailing tim.ingham@intentmedia.co.uk DAVID JOSEPH HOPEFUL OF DOUBLE-PLATINUM SALES


Mis has the air of a hit U


LABELS  BY TIM INGHAM


niversal has high hopes for its soundtrack of what looks destined to


become 2013’s biggest movie musical, Les Misérables. The film, which stars Russell


Crowe and Anne Hathaway, is due for a theatrical release on January 11. Polydor will release the OST in the UK on January 14, containing songs which were all sung live on set by the cast. Les Misérables is directed by Oscar-winning Brit Tom Hooper, who previously helmed The King’s Speech. Universal Music chairman &


CEO David Joseph told Music Week that the movie was “beautifully pieced together”, and that he expected “a big conversion” from cinema-goers to OST buyers. He revealed that the record company would release an initial OST containing 20 tracks and consider a further LP release featuring all of the music from the film. “I’ve never seen anything like


it before – you’re effectively running a two-and-a-half-hour film on 2% of dialogue, with everything else sung,” he said. “This team of people have created a bit of a masterpiece. It’s the kind of soundtrack that comes along every ten years or so. I think it could be on the same level if not bigger than Moulin Rouge.”


The hugely successful


Mamma Mia OST, released in July 2008, has sold 1.4m in the UK. Moulin Rouge, released in September 2001, has clocked up OST sales of more than 512,000. Joseph added: “If the Les Mis


film does what it deserves, the soundtrack should [sell] at least a million-plus [worldwide]. Is it going to be two times or three times that? If there’s justice, it will be one of those films. It will sell in every country in the world... I hope it will be a double- platinum album in the UK.” Universal has signed a


worldwide label deal on the Les Mis OST, with Universal Republic handling its release in the US. The movie is a joint


production by Working Title with Cameron Mackintosh Ltd, the producer of and rights-holder to the Les Misérables stage musical. More than 60m people in 42 countries have seen the show live in its 28-year history. Soundtracks to Cameron


Mackintosh productions have traditionally been released via John Craig’s First Night Records.


The relationship with Universal began to blossom when Polydor released the soundtrack to the 25th anniversary performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera last year, which was co-produced by CM. “I knew Lucian Grainge


when he was on the board of the Roundhouse,” Cameron Mackintosh MD Nick Allott explained to Music Week. “He recommended David,


and he was one of the first people I rang. We met various people in Polydor through the Classic Brits, and felt comfortable with the relationship. We did the right kind of deal. It’s fairly hefty. We trust Universal has the strength to do justice to Les Misérables, one of the great copyrights of all time. This is a show that continues to sell out around the world. Allott added: “The great thing


about a cast album rather than a rock and roll album is that its shelf life is much, much longer. “[In pop] you usually have


that initial flurry with everyone throwing their weight behind it for six months then it fades away. But a cast album has a constituency of at least 15,000 people coming new to it every week at a theatre [or cinema] somewhere around the world.” Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables


tells the story of Jean Valjean, hunted for decades by the ruthless policeman Javert after he breaks parole.


BMG teams up with Sam Eldridge


BMG Chrysalis UK has formed joint venture publishing deals with two companies run by Plan B manager Sam Eldridge. Eldridge won Manager


Of The Year at the Artist & Manager Awards last week. The first BMG deal is linked


to Merok Records, the label Eldridge runs with Milo Cordell. Its first writer signing is Daughn Gibson, a US singer-songwriter whose self-released debut album All Hell received a positive review from Pitchfork. He is currently recording a new album


for SubPop. The second JV is an off-shoot


of the Urok management company Eldridge runs with his father, legendary music executive Roy Eldridge, which represents artists including Plan B, Tribes, Mystery Jets and hotly tipped Columbia artist Tom Odell. It has signed a publishing deal with Gemini, a DJ/producer who has done remixes for Lana Del Rey and Emeli Sande and is now signed to Island Records. Alexi Cory-Smith, senior vice-president of BMG


Chrysalis UK, said: “These signings demonstrate the range and potential of these joint ventures. Sam Eldridge is a hugely talented music executive who richly deserves the title of ‘Manager of the Year’ and we are delighted to be working with him.” Eldridge said: “BMG is the


most dynamic and exciting publisher around today, combining the creativity of its indie heritage with a drive, focus and ambition to compete at the highest level.”


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