Several of my friends were at Upright Cabaret last night for the Adam celebration, I’ve noticed several messages, but didn’t know if you all knew the history of the song Adam sang over the phone, “Feeling Good.” It’s from a 1965 musical called “The Roar of the Greasepaint-the Smell of the Crowd.” As always, Adam thinks a lot about what he’s singing and how perfect are these lyrics:

“Birds flying high /  You know how I feel / Sun in the sky / You know how I feel
Reeds driftin’ on by / You know how I feel
It’s a new dawn / It’s a new day / It’s a new life / For me
And I’m feeling good”

Composers: Leslie Bricusse & Anthony Newley
Publisher & lyrics courtesy of Hal Leonard Corporation

Thank you for your kindest compliments, I’m honored and appreciate everyone’s participation very much. Even experienced entertainment professionals are unfamiliar with a lot of the business aspects. I always recommend the book “This Business Of Music” as a primer; it deals with contracts, publishing, merchandising and other vitally important areas from a nuts and bolts standpoint. We often joke it should be called “business show” instead of “show business” for that very reason. AI is arguably the biggest business for music in the world; so everything is taken very seriously by all the possible players.

Several people have asked questions about Simon Cowell (whom I have enormous respect and admiration for), recording contracts, and the interrelationships between the parties involved in American Idol. It’s complicated and some of it I can’t discuss, but I’ll try to make it as easy as possible and want to stress that the salient parts are basically accessible through the US Securities and Exchange Commission (though I’m distilling it for clarity).

19 TV is the owner and creator of the Idol Format and entitled to acquire the exclusive recording services of the Artists. In exchange for Simon Cowell performing his services as a judge on American Idol 8, 19 agreed to grant to Syco (that’s one of Simon Cowell’s companies) the option to acquire or allow Nominated Labels to acquire rights in and to certain Artists (including the Winning Artist and any or all of the Finalists of American Idol 8). For Season 8, the Nominated Label is Sony BMG for the Winner; for other Finalists there’s a process where record labels provide expressions of interest (this is happening right now, it’s usually in play by the time the Final 5 are chosen).

What this means is that because Simon performed his duties as a judge on the show, Syco has the rights to the Finalists’ recording contracts, which Simon then (as an executive of Sony BMG) assigns to Sony BMG (or potentially other labels based on the expressions of interest) for distribution deals. That’s why Simon is so important to this whole process; it’s basically his decision who’s getting signed. Keep in mind this is just on the recording side; 19 Management has an entirely different set of rights with respect to the overall careers of the contestants as we’ve previously discussed.

With respect to performances in the future, it’s an ongoing management/label/Artist discussion. For publicity purposes live performances are certainly fine, but as you can imagine the label wants their Artists primarily selling their musical performances. So sometimes, there will be a clause like “Artist may perform in live venues for three months after signing after which time it is only permitted if the performance is recorded for distribution.” All contracts are different, but because of Adam’s background I’d imagine he’ll have a lot of flexibility returning to venues he’s performed in before based on his overall career direction. The role of a Manager is not to tell Artists what they can and cannot do (that would be futile ;) but to maximize their success taking in all of the opportunities, potential, market timing, relationships, strengths and weaknesses of their client.

As previously mentioned, there’s a big difference between a 27 year old Artist and a 16 year old, so I would expect Adam to have a more active role both because he’s an adult and also because he has excellent creative instincts. It’s a team effort, and in no way a “we vs. them” situation (all the contestants wanted to be on the show), so I continue to respectfully point out that discussions about “control” or “not allowed” or “19 is bad” or “it’s better if he doesn’t win” etc are often moot or not really reflective of how the industry works.

The Internet is taken very seriously by the industry because it’s a new sales channel (iTunes and others), and because it’s a global marketing/promotion vehicle. It’s my understanding Fox has the contractual right to produce and maintain this website at their cost and expense (which I’m sure is expensive, websites like these can have multimillion dollar budgets for setup and maintenance, but they do have commercial sponsors to defray some of the costs).

It will be interesting to see if Adam does some covers of his AI performances for his solo album; it’s going to be a collaborative effort. Everyone involved is very aware of timetables and markers like Black Friday so I’d expect to see product by that time. He may also duet with another Artist in the meantime, it all depends on timing.

As was mentioned, “AI throws different genres on them to see how creative they can be in changing the songs up to reflect a more current take on them.” I’ve quoted MasterClassLady in several messages, I think she’s marvelous not only for her expertise, but also in making quite complicated technical information understandable for the listening public.

On the current iTunes recordings, considering they only have a few days to prepare all the contestants’ recordings I think they’re doing a great job.

I loved questions about theatre kids being inspired by Adam… here’s a link to a great story about the children’s theatre company Adam worked with on MTV’s website: “He came in as a little squirt, maybe a third-grader and stayed with us through his teens,” said Kathie Urban, the non-profit theater’s executive producer. Kathie talks about how the experience prepared Adam for what’s happening now. I think theatrical performers are going to take the show even more seriously in the future because they are seeing that the experience they have from live performance is really helpful, and because one of the “home team” made it.

By the way, a lot of industry people are following the “Adam, Do My Laundry” thread on the AI Adam board and think it’s one of the funniest things we’ve read!

Best, Michael

Posted in: Industry Perspective by nymichael / Tags: 19 TV, Adam Lambert, FOX, Simon Cowell, Sony BMG, Upright Cabaret