I ENTERED THE 2000S WARILY. Technology was changing faster than ever, and the heads of the music business could not or would not adapt. They were dinosaurs, fighting over the same old turf in the same old ways, while a few of us looked up and thought, What’s that light in the sky?
In the mid-1990s, music impresario Ricky Adar met with German inventor Karlheinz Brandenburg, the main creator of the MP3. After Adar saw the possibilities of the new technology, he said to Brandenburg, “Do you realize what you’ve done? You’ve killed the music industry.” He wasn’t far off the mark.
The heads of the major labels had good reason to resist the change. The late 1990s had been the most profitable era in music history, driven by the CD boom. CDs cost less than a dollar to produce and sold at roughly seventeen dollars retail. With a profit margin that big, who cared about an arcane technological feat like the MP3?
In 1998, the first consumer-grade MP3 player hit the market. It cost $600 and held five songs—not exactly a threat to the CD. But the MP3 fit the Internet age like a hand in a glove. MP3s shrank huge chunks of data—say, an entire album, or an entire music library—down to a manageable size, and increasing Internet speeds allowed that shrunken data to be shared with ease. It turned out that the light in the sky, the coming doom, was peer-to-peer file sharing. In 1999, the meteor struck: Napster. The age of piracy had begun.
Doug, who by this time was the most powerful music executive in the world, with one-fourth of the entire global market under his control, suddenly became very much against stealing. After all, this was different from selling cleans or cut-outs, or when his company colluded with the other major labels to keep CD prices artificially high, thus in effect stealing half a billion dollars from consumers. This time, someone was stealing from him.
He led the industry’s charge to sue the MP3 out of existence, but it wasn’t just him. The entire business fought the digital revolution tooth and nail. Eighteen companies joined a lawsuit against Napster. The outcome of the case wasn’t important; what was important was that the music business missed the lesson almost completely. The old model was dead. By 2001, the first iPod hit the market. Sony had invented hardware and software for MP3 technology, but they were blind to its power. Steve Jobs beat them to the punch.
Doug had never been a fan of change. When Billboard switched to SoundScan technology in 1991, he canceled the subscriptions for Atlantic. SoundScan made sales reporting transparent, and the old guard couldn’t continue stealing if there was transparency. However, to Doug’s credit, he eventually signed on with Apple after Jobs offered him seventy cents on the dollar for every MP3 sold in the iTunes store. Unfortunately for Doug and everyone else in the business, nothing could stop the coming collapse, which has only gotten worse as digital has replaced physical and streaming has taken over the market.
For me, the digital explosion was just one of many things that sucked the joy out of my job. Life as an A&R executive wasn’t as fun as it used to be. In fact, it hadn’t been fun for years. I worked for a salary now, not for passion. I spent more time reminiscing about the past than I did dreaming about the future. As I looked back on my career, I realized I had one huge piece of unfinished business: I had to thank Randy Goodman. We hadn’t spoken since I was fired, and I had learned and grown so much since leaving RCA—much of it due to Randy’s influence—that I wanted to make it right.
Through my contacts in Nashville, I had been keeping tabs on him over the years. In August 1999, I happened to find myself alone with Michael Eisner, then the chairman and CEO of Disney. We spoke about Lyric Street, which Disney owned, and I told him what a great executive Randy was. I always tried to look out for Randy if the opportunity presented itself.
I summoned the courage to call him at his office and invite him to lunch the next time he was in New York City. As fate would have it, he was coming to New York a few days later with one of his new acts, Rascal Flatts. His office called back with a date and a place to meet. On a warm day in September 2000, I walked from my apartment to meet him at a restaurant across from his hotel. I wondered if he would be able to see the changes in my face—the loss I had endured, the grief that occupied my heart. I greeted him warmly with a kiss on the cheek and sat down. I was nervous. He looked as if the past seven years hadn’t passed. We made small talk. He spoke about his family and what it was like to be president of a label. It seemed very exciting to me.
Then I got to the point. I thanked him for everything he had done for me. I told him that he had changed me for the better, that he had uplifted my spirit each day, given me grace, and provided me with my first good influence in the music business. He seemed surprised. Then, in a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “You tried to wear me down, but you couldn’t do it.”
I laughed nervously, as though everything were my fault. I didn’t have an explanation for him, and he didn’t ask for one. I knew he’d never understand that he broke me down, too. All I could say was, “I’m sorry for putting you in an impossible position.” We finished our lunch and said a pleasant good-bye. As I walked away, I couldn’t help but turn around to watch him as he disappeared into the New York City crowd.
I went back to work. Time passed. I spent my days listening to music and trying to stay out of the gossip and drama. I watched from the sidelines as piracy ate away at our hits and our profits. Heads began to roll as revenue cratered. Tommy was fired in January 2003, but as we have seen, he didn’t suffer much. Doug Morris was there to give him a multimillion-dollar deal at the Universal Music Group. I don’t know what all Tommy did to earn it, but life is good when you have a friend like Doug Morris.
I didn’t miss Tommy. I don’t think anyone did—especially not his former boss. That year at the Sony Grammy party I saw Sir Howard Stringer standing near the bar. As I approached the bar to get a drink, Sir Howard said, “So this is what I’ve been paying for all these years.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Tommy had never invited him to these events.
In April 2003, Donnie left Columbia and was promoted to chairman of the Sony Music Group. I missed Donnie, but I understood that he had to keep moving—he was like a shark. John Ingrassia remained my boss, but I only saw him every couple months or so.
The next few years were unremarkable. In 2006, my contract was due to expire, and I got a call that Columbia wouldn’t renew it. I understood. Donnie was gone, and I had no one left to fight for me. I’m not even sure I wanted anyone to fight for me. After twenty years, I said good-bye to my dreams of working A&R and being the vice president of a label. I felt proud to have achieved one of those dreams, but it was time to let the other one go. I had to move on.