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Tony Wadsworth departs BPI with rally call for labels
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 2 September 2014
Speaking for the final time as Chairman of the UK’s record industry trade body the BPI yesterday afternoon, Tony Wadsworth spoke up passionately for the record industry and the record company.
And while his initial words seemed aimed at keynote speaker Sajid Javid MP, and the other political twonks with a hand in the cultural and copyright industries, much of his speech seemed aimed at a wider audience, or, actually, a more internal audience, ie the rest of the music industry, and the artist community that sits at the heart of it all. Perhaps because with Wadsworth’s departure the BPI is losing an important asset, a former major label chief almost universally liked by the artist community.
But first the political bit. Noting the challenges and opportunities that the record industry has dealt with during the seven years Wadsworth’s been Chair of the BPI, he said: “Music and technology are great partners when they work together, and music is as big a driver of technology growth and value as anything. In the recent past, government advisers have sometimes fallen into the trap of seeing the protection of intellectual property and content as a barrier to the growth of technology. I think that perception is changing for the better – creative content drives technology growth, but without support, investment and protection, it will suffer, and the industries that depend on it will suffer, and that includes technology”.
Shifting his attention from Westminster to the music business, and noting that, after its decade of digital turmoil, the industry has now turned a corner – “I am a great believer in the future of our industry – there has never been more demand for our product” – Wadsworth was adamant that the good old fashioned record label played a key role in the music business’s rosey future. Indeed, he said, “the label has never been more important than it is today”.
He mused: “Labels have gone through a tough time. Overheads and employee numbers have almost halved, all at the same time that the labels have had to reinvent themselves for a new market place. Labels are the engine room, the major investors in talent, with money and resources and skills. But the total pie that we are all sharing is smaller at the moment. That’s why royalty cheques are smaller – not because the labels are spending it all on champagne and caviar, but because there’s less to go round”.
But, he went on: “The return to growth will produce greater returns for everyone. It is more important now than at any other time that the artist community and labels work together in a collaborative, and collegiate way. The artists’ share of the pie has, in fact, never been greater, and I applaud that – and so should artists and their managers”.
“In some quarters, the record label used to be seen as a thing of the past – something that was less relevant than it had been in previous decades. The argument went that, with the advent of digital, ‘we can all do it ourselves’. [But] we are awash with content, everywhere we look. There’s no shortage of people making music and films – mainly about cats – we are all creators now, and that’s absolutely fine, but I would like to listen to some good stuff please”.
“And this is where labels come in. Labels trawl through the dross and the ordinary, and find the best artists and work with them to help them get even better. Then work with them to present their music in a way which will cut through all the rest of the clutter and digital debris, so that the music fan can have the best possible experience and so that music creators can make a living”.
So, learn from the past, look to the future, and reinvent the artist/label partnership so that everyone benefits. And how better to do just that at the BPI itself than by embracing a word from the past (“phonographic” is back in the trade group’s logo, having been out of favour for a while), while moving forward with a funky new corporate identity, which the record industry trade body unveiled yesterday. And as a certain Damon Albarn, signed to Wadsworth’s EMI back in its CD selling heyday, presented the outgoing Chair with an honorary BRIT, you couldn’t helping wondering if the BPI’s logo designer was a Blur fan too.
