When Michael Jackson went on a media blitz last week, accusing Sony Music and specifically Tommy Mottola of being racist, you know we had to say something about it. Jackson made such a stink that even Al Sharpton is trying to distance himself from the comments made by the “king of pop”! Michael seems to think his sales are down because Sony didn’t promote his last album well enough due to racism.  Bold statement indeed! Is there any validity to this? Or is it just the sad fact that Michael’s latest studio effort wasn’t up to snuff? We wanted to get to the bottom of this issue so we had to call on someone who knows all about Sony and their dealings with race. We asked our friend, Marty Thau, president and founder of Red Star Records as well as featured writing at the Tres Producers weblog site, to give us his take on this latest development. Marty has the unique ability to give us an inside perspective on how Sony deals with race since he is currently battling Sony and Heineken over their use of his company name (we covered this battle in more detail a couple months back in our What the Hell series.. see “Let’s Sell More Beer To Blacks”). So we are pleased to bring you this special guest Rantitorial from Marty as he takes a closer look at the whole Michael Jackson controversy. 

(Something to keep the lawyers happy..  The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff and operators of antiMUSIC, the iconoFAN Network or the Iconoclast Entertainment Group.) 

Manchild Revisited: Race Crusader Or Falling Star? by Marty Thau

Michael “the self proclaimed King of Pop” Jackson has a complaint to make, and when this happens, people listen. Online journals like the Drudge Report can’t wait to print Jackson’s issues, while rags like the New York Post (one step up from the gutter) can’t wait to further discredit the now pathetic megalomaniac singer who won’t accept the fact that these days most consider him to be an irrelevant freak show. But our very own modern Howard Hughes still sells in the low millions, still has fans and can’t be totally dismissed. We all still wanna know the inside scoop on him (mainly the pedophilia stuff; admit it you bloodthirsty freaks), although we think we already know. And with Michael we do want blood because he has been so transparently phony and disingenuous, from his staged marriage to Lisa Marie Presley to his denials of misconduct with young boys. 

Anyway, today let’s all be good citizens and hear what the ‘once-great-always-great’ music manchild has to say. Whatever Michael is these days, be it a suspected closet gay, or accused recalcitrant pedophile, or a knight in rusted armor out to save the record business, let’s analyze his anti-music biz complaint very closely and be fair to him and Sony Music, too, although they deserve very little from me. (More on that later).

This is what it’s about: Michael believes Sony Music has sabotaged his latest release, “INVINCIBLE,”  by mishandling its promotion. And to take it one step further, Michael has labeled Sony chieftan Tommy Mottola “a racist and the devil.” These accusations have appalled Mottola’s supporters who believe these are unwarranted and ugly attacks on his character and have sparked support for Mottola from producers, artists and record industry executives across the country.

In an alliance against alleged exploitation in the industry, Jackson has joined forces with Rev. Al Sharpton and the notorious Johnny Cochran to protest against a conspiracy to defraud all artists. “They steal, they cheat, they do whatever they can. Especially against black artists” Jackson told an audience of 350 at Sharpton’s headquarters in Harlem last weekend.

Sony says they’ve spent an estimated $25 million promoting “INVINCIBLE”, calling Jackson’s accusations “ludicrous, spiteful and hurtful” and are demanding he pay back tens of millions spent on promotion. (“INVINCIBLE” only sold 5 million worldwide (2 million in the US) - a far cry from ‘THRILLER’S” 45 million copies). 

Jackson’s supporters contend that SONY is attempting to drive Jackson into debt so that he would have to give up his half-ownership of the Beatles’ back catalogue, which he co-owns with SONY, according to England’s  highly regarded GUARDIAN newspaper. 

Is this about Jackson wanting to start over at some other label and is this his way of abandoning his contract with Sony because their bean counters have deemed his contract too rich for their blood? But yet one must wonder if Sony has actually sabotaged his recording in order to get Jackson to ask for a release and settlement of monies. (That Beatles catalogue sure is alluring if, in fact, it’s so) We’re talking mucho bucks and financial strategy and public image when all is said and done. It’s big-time scumbag business. 

But let’s backtrack to the racism element of this insanity: I’m in the midst of a dispute with Sony, which leads me to believe that racism just might be a reality at Sony now that someone has confirmed my suspicions. The kind of racism Sony and the entire music industry might be guilty of is “unconscious and insensitive racism.” They don’t wanna be; they dont think they are but are they too removed from the real world to realize that it’s very possible that that is exactly what they are ... racists of a new stripe? 

Here’s my example. Heineken, the Dutch beer folks, decided to get into the record biz and promote their beer through music CDs directed to beer buying blacks. So they formed a label, struck up a distribution deal with Sony’s Epic Records division and decided to call themselves Red Star Records. 

Now my company is Red Star Records and has been for 25 years. Yet, Heineken is attempting to steal my company name out from under me because I failed to trademark it in 1977. They know, without any doubt, because I’ve provided them with samples of my releases, interstate invoices, reviews, etc., and the like, that I’ve been Red Star for 25 years but that doesn’t seem to matter.  They want the name because their beer bottles have a red star design on the label and that, in their selfish way of thinking, is good enough reason to steal my name and not think twice about who it might hurt. Heineken even tried to persuade me that since they are a “non-profit music initiative designed to benefit urban musicians” I should, in essence, give up my company name and go along with the program because it would be the righteous thing to do. (Sure ... I’ll do that guys).

Now, you may ask, what does this have to do with racism? Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Heineken wants to sell more beer to blacks but the way in which they are positioning themselves, under the false pretense of their “non profit music initiative to aid urban musicians”, they are actually degrading blacks. If you think about it, blacks don’t seem to have any difficulty getting their urban music across because they ARE urban music! If Heineken really and truly wants to help the needy they can donate computers to poor schools in Detroit, or Philly, or Africa, or donate monies to AIDS researchers. 

Is Heineken racist? Is Epic? Not in the true and commonly known sense but certainly yes in the “unconscious and insensitive sense.” Is this the new face of racism in corporate white ivory towers? Is the Pope catholic? Is Jackson a suitable advocate to champion his campaign against racism, or is this his business strategy as he clings to his share of the Beatles back catalogue? 

It seems, though, he’s through at Sony. Probably Warners, or BMG, or one of the few remaining other major scumbag organizations, are waiting in the wings to pounce on MJ and give him $75 Million, or more, to sign up with them.  (Don’t underestimate Jackson. He’ll be back).

Here’s the bottom line—the record business needs a complete overhauling.  Its artist contracts are one sided and incredibly unfair, its musical offerings are stale, formulaic and disposable and cater to the lowest common denominator crowd with some rare exceptions and there is way too much product on the marketplace of inferior quality at inflated prices. And any musical attempts at creativity are left as crumbs for the indies to fight over. As Don Henley recently said; “the major record business has a 90% failure rate; it’s the 10% that make the season.” I say this; any business that fails 90% of the time should be closed down. 

Marty Thau

(Marty Thau is the President and Founder of Red Star Records as well as a featured writer for the excellent weblog TRES PRODUCERS)