A poll in Music Week has shown overwhelming support for multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield who, as previously reported, has hit out at that decision by EMI to give away his classic album 'Tubular Bells' free with the Mail On Sunday last month.
As previously reported, the paper gave away a copy of the album to every reader in a covermount CD promotion tied to a feature about Richard Branson's latest book - 'Tubular Bells' being the first album ever released on Branson's Virgin Records back in 1973. But Oldfield wasn't party to the deal between the paper and EMI, who now own Virgin Records of course, and last week he wrote to Music Week saying: "EMI's decision to give away 'Tubular Bells' was taken without my agreement or even the simple courtesy of EMI telling me about it. I heard about the campaign by pure chance. To group real music with cheap loan leaflets and the other freebies that fall out of most publications is to devalue it. I have no desire to push my music to someone who has not sought it out. I know that other artists feel the same".
Since that letter, Music Week's website polled its industry readership about the issue, asking "Is Mike Oldfield right to be angry over EMI doing a deal with The Mail On Sunday to covermount his classic album Tubular Bells?" 89.9% of those who answered said yes.
As observed in this bit yesterday, this debate is sure to reignite opposition in the UK artist, management and music retail communities to the concept of covermount promotions. That opposition originally led to many record companies shying away from getting involved in such promotions, though the newspapers are increasingly willing to pay substantial fees for the right content - EMI reportedly received £200,000 for the 'Tubular Bells' promotion - fees which will be attractive to major labels desperate to secure new revenue streams.
Defending the 'Tubular Bells' promotion, Simon Stanford of Upfront Promotions, the agency behind the free CD, told Music Week this week: "Far from hurting album sales, there is a positive effect on sales of albums after a covermount promotion - the sales of 'Tubular Bells' increased the week after its promotion and our recent Dolly Parton covermount promotion helped sales of SonyBMG's greatest hits album because of the massive exposure given to Dolly by the newspaper. If the music industry is serious about looking for new revenue streams and markets, it should fully exploit newspaper covermount promotions as they offer large incremental revenue streams and free mass market promotion for their artists' catalogues".
Of course he's not entirely wrong in what he says there, though some covermounts benefit artists much better than others - financially and in terms of promotion. Whether giving away 'Tubular Bells' in its entirety at a time when Oldfield has nothing new to sell or promote can really be said to benefit him, I don't know, I'm not convinced it can. What I am sure of though is that if labels want to utilise the revenue and marketing potential of covermounts, entering into high profile promotions like this without consulting the artist whose music is being given away is probably not the best way to do it.