Paul McCartney has revealed that he decided to part company with EMI earlier this year because the people that worked there were a bunch of uncreative, formulaic tired old fuckers, and frankly he'd had enough of their uninspiring, depressing and ultimately useless marketing campaigns. I should stress I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but that's the gist of what Macca said in an interview with The Times last week, in which he discussed his decision to end his career long relationship with the London based major. The marketers, it seems, needed a few more shots of the strong stuff to rediscover their marketing edge, which is presumably why Macca decided to jump ship to the Starbucks backed Hear Music, where the marketing department is presumably never short of a shot of espresso or three.
Saying he "dreaded going to see" execs at his former label, McCartney told the Times: "Everybody at EMI had become part of the furniture. I'd be a couch; Coldplay are an armchair. Robbie Williams, I dread to think what he was". Whenever he had a new album to promote, he says, "I could guess what they were going to say. 'Love your record, Paul.' And I'd say, 'Well what should we do with it?' Then they'd go: 'Well, we think you ought to go to Cologne', which is what they always say. You go somewhere, speak to a million journalists for one day and you get all the same questions. So I started saying, 'God, we've got to do something else'". He concluded by complaining that when he had new music to release the major always said they'd need six months to plan the marketing campaign, adding: "Couldn't some bright people do that in two days? Look boys, I'm sorry, I'm digging a new furrow".
Of course EMI old timers might say that had Macca made some more interesting music they'd have marketed it in a more interesting way, though EMI new timers (ie Terra Firma types) would probably argue Macca's comments support their viewpoint that a radical cultural change is required at EMI if they are to succeed in the digital age. And, of course, McCartney would surely point to the relative commercial success of his first album for Starbucks, 'Memory Almost Full', though to be fair the mere decision to take his music to the coffee firm garnered enough media coverage to account for some of those sales.