Issue #2

Reverence & Revulsion: Two Gender Specific Sides of the Music Industry
by Phil Tripp

Industry issues like file sharing, subscription models, royalty accounting, contractual deal points and chart positioning get kind of boring after a while. In ours, perhaps the most visible industry to media alongside film & TV, when someone gets busted with drugs, drives drunk, goes into or gets out of rehab, tops themselves, tries to top themselves, gets caught with prostitutes in the back seat or other scandalous behaviour, it gets reported in the press and the public sighs over their porridge.

But when these things happen to top level executives in the music business, it’s rarely reported though the repercussions on a company level or among peers is often felt but seldom acknowledged. Everyone likes a little bit of gossip, sure, but in this blokey industry, sometimes things happen that just have to be commented on, not as prurient tales for the telling, but as life lessons. This is one of them. It’s a pretty dark story and I’m sure more than a few people will object to me telling it.

First let me say that the best thing about the music industry in Australia I see at the moment is that the people who are working the hardest, taking the least credit, making the most impact, creating the greatest future for the industry and earning my respect… are women. Years ago, it was far more a blokes’ biz than now with females relegated mostly to positions of either secretary or promo/publicity person. Getting recognised for abilities and being promoted to a position of authority was rarer than now. Heading up a record company or publisher, unless it was their own company, was unheard of.

Fast forward to today and it’s obvious from some of the names I’m about to mention that some of our most valuable and creative executives are not charged with testosterone but with the lives of artists, careers and corporations. Take for example the heads of two record companies-Fifa Riccobono of Alberts and Vicki Gordon of Transistor-both of whom I admire for their work ethic and ethics at work. And the former head of Virgin and Mighty Boy, Moira Bennett is back too!

Two of the industry’s most important organizations are run by women who are doing a remarkable job in uniting their constituents, educating and informing them as well as helping develop their professional skills and networking-Julie Owens of AIR and Selena Quintrell of the Music Managers Forum. At APRA, most of the movers and shakers are women. At the Australia Council, the one major force for our contemporary music development programs is Sue Spence. We have a number of exceptional music business lawyers and intellectual property attorneys who don’t wear ties. Artist Managers? Just look at the work of Bernadete Ryan, Carlene Abronda, Rae Harvey, Sue Melke and the sheer volume of female artist shepherds.

Publicists? The best ones are women. Music Press publishers and music magazine editors-many of them are female and certainly they’re the best of the lot. I could go on, but let’s get to the point.

And here it is. There is a corruption that can occur with the sort of absolute power that one gets when one runs, let’s say, a major multinational record company. As the MD or Chairman, you are expected to lead your troops in faith and honour, encourage them to do their best and set an example for them ethically and morally. Not only do your fellow executives look to you for examples of what is appropriate behaviour, but your overseas bosses would be aghast if you dipped your pen in the company ink so to speak-had an affair with one of your staff, especially if you were married at the time.

When we ran an employment service, we encountered one situation where a junior staffer had an affair with a senior executive. When discovered, it was the young woman who had to be sacrificed. We’ve read about the high profile sexual harassment cases that have happened and been settled overseas-Mike Greene of the Grammy organization and Mike Bone of MCA are two of the most notorious. But you never seem to have heard of any here though I know of three at high levels and one where the staffer getting the boot tried on the threat of suing for unfair dismissal. In the end, it always seems to be the woman who gets the push, the males who dish the dirt on their conquests and the rest of the staff who suffer the repercussions.

I’ve let this sit for a while and we’ve encountered similar situations at other companies where romances flourish among executives of the same level or passion entwines, let’s say a senior male executive and a less senior promo person, secretary. publicist or other company employee-much less outside contractors. No I can’t name the person for obvious defamation reasons, but I can assure you that it is not one of the current serving MDs or Chairmen.

Let’s say this happened within the past five years which gives a large number of ex-MDs and Chairmen to choose from, but who cares who it was-the story is in the principle.

Imagine if you were working in any company where the married boss suddenly takes up with an executive in such an obvious way and at such a pivotal time in the relationship with his wronged wife. Imagine if you were working under her or under him (literally) and you had reason to doubt the professionality of the relationship. Imagine that interstate and overseas trips were the norm for the couple even when other staff were more deserving and not sent on these intracompany missions. Imagine if you were part of a team, trying to build artist careers and get the respect of retailers, radio, media and other record companies, publishers and peers, when the affair was so well know, so obvious and so notorious that kinda everyone knew.

I’m not really moralising here, but when Jack Welsh of General Electric has an affair with a journalist, it’s big news-Vanity Fair stories. For one thing, the female is tainted because she was seen as ‘too weak’ while the Boss is seen as a ’stud’. He can afford to be cavalier, can lose his wife, be as transoarent as he wishes because in the end, it’s unlikely he’ll be sacrificed, especially if he’s turning in a good bottom line and no one sues.

What’s unfair about this situation goes beyond the affair. It’s other women (and men) in the company becoming disrespectful, disenchanted and demotivated when they realise the Boss has such perverse standards. Imagine the discomfort of those outside the company who depend on the female part of the relationship for their artist’s exposure and have to negotiate with the Boss for their deal.

If this were the accounting business, no one would care. If it were a senior partner at a legal firm and a junior lawyer, it wouldn’t get much attention. If it were the rubber industry, plastics, engineering, architecture or nuclear robotics, no one would really give a shit.

But in this business of music, in this swimming pool of spit and sincerity that we call our industry, those who screw around in full view while in the hot tub at the side of the pool can’t help but be noticed. And the shame of it is not on the woman who knew the Boss was married and stayed within the company while the long-term relationship kept going in full view of the rest of the staff. The shame is with the man who made the choice, supposedly as an industry leader, who simply became a lech and a loser.

Here’s an interesting point that one of my co-conspirators in the industry pointed out to me when I discussed this article with him and the identity of the person. When it comes time to downsize companies or let staff go in a cost cutting move, it affects women more because they are viewed as the more expendable creatures. Often the people cut come from promo, publicity, support services, marketing, etc rather than from the executive levels. Interesting point…

[ Reprinted with permission. This article first appeared in Phil's column 'Loose Cannon' which can be found online here ]