Korgscrew
Group: Super Admins
Posts: 3511
Joined: Dec. 1999 |
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Posted: Mar. 25 2001, 13:03 |
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Well, for a start, Virgin Records isn't actually owned by Richard Branson any more - he sold it to EMI (shortly after Mike left if I remember rightly...).
Mike had problems with Branson because of the contract he had. When mike signed, neither him nor Richard Branson knew much about music contracts (supposedly...), so Mike ended up signing something that wasn't really too much in his best interests. The contract bound him to making 10 albums for Virgin (not including the likes of Exposed, Orchestral Tubular Bells, The Killing Fields, etc) which was later extended to 13 as part of a deal Mike struck with Virgin. This deal was to get better royalties out of them - Mike was getting a lot less than the newer Virgin signings at one time, which Mike thought was rather unfair (quite rightly really, although in Virgin's defence, he did sign the contract...). He negotiated more royalties in exchange for three more albums.
Another problems was that he felt Virgin weren't promoting his albums terribly well - a lot weren't even being released in the United States, for instance. He even tried co-operating wwith them more closely at one point, in a hope to get more of their support. The result of that was QE2, an album with covers of two songs suggested by Virgin executives, plus a co-producer they recommended. The problem was, Virrgin still didn't promote Mike's work in the way he wanted...
But Mike later made friends again with Branson - I think what Mike really hated was not Richard Branson himself, but rather some of the things that Branson had done to him. Around the time of the release of The Millennium Bell, Mike was talking of working with Branson again. That may well mean him signing to Branson's V2 label, rather than EMI's Virgin label...Either way, I think Mike will be careful this time to get a contract he's happy with (or at least, I hope he will...).
Oh, and I think the co-incidence thing goes further because...Isn't EMI part of Time Warner?
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