Artists hurt by a label change

Yeah, I think the best description I've heard was that he was a "loveable screw-up that started becoming less lovable and more screw-up".

Mind you, the double blow of Bob's.. umm.. *assertive* approach to band politics and their manager's death certainly didn't help Grant.

 

After being dumped by Warner Bros. for 1984's dire Shout, Devo hawked around a demo tape to various labels and were finally signed to Enigma Records just as it started to go belly up. Being signed by a label that had no money for promotion, Devo watched their career slide into oblivion as 1988's Total Devo, an even worse album than Shout, barely managed to scrape into the top 200 album chart. After hurriedly releasing a rather poor live album from their 1988 cub tour, they re-entered the studio and recorded a new album, that while being a stronger effort than it's predecessor, failed to make the charts at all. They didn't even tour Smooth Noodle Maps in the US and their European tour was cut short due to poor ticket sales. Ironically, when they unofficially broke up in 1991, Devo almost immediately began to be praised as an influence by many bands of the grunge explosion.

 

Delbert McClinton- Throughout his career whatever record label he happened to be signed to either went bankrupt, got bought out or went through major management upheaval about the time his records were pressed. He never could catch a break in that regard. Had a stable, financially secure label signed Delbert in the late 1960s or early 1970s, promoted his work and kept him signed year after year he'd have been a household name. But he's still out there doing his thing!

 

One of my favorite Dylan albums.

 

2Pac Shakur.

One conspiracy theory that has been around for years suggests Suge Knight was behind his death, because he knew 2Pac was planning on leaving the label. If it is true no one has been more hurt by a label change!

 

Mariah Carey going to Virgin Records was a poor career decision.

Then again... Mariah herself was making a ton of poor choices at the time.

Question of Mariah or Virgin Records or both.

 

Bryan Adams, supposedly getting his contract sold to Interscope around the time On a Day Like Today was released. I think that basically killed his chances of rebounding to star level in the USA.

 

I suppose Macca going home to Capitol in the 80s counts.

 

Perhaps, but I think that like a lot of the "hurt careers", that was an example of a career that was ripe for a downturn anyway. Hardly anyone continues to make chart hits in their mid-40s!

Actually, Macca's first single after the return to Capitol was a hit - "Spies Like Us". It was just everything after that that failed to sell really well.

While I contend that Macca's career would've sagged commercially anyway, I do wonder if "Press to Play" would exist in the same way if he'd stayed on Columbia. That album tried hard to be "commercial and up to date", and it's possible he felt more pressure to score a hit because of the label change.

Who knows? I like "Press" and think it should've been a hit!

 

Another example would be Big Star getting picked up by Stax as they were failing.

 

Kingston Trio
Capital to Decca

 

It had to happen. Somebody always makes it seem as if Big Star was one lucky bounce from stardom.

 

Elton John and Donna Summer, both when they went to Geffen.

 

Maybe on Elton. Yeah, his tenure at Geffen didn't start well with "The Fox", but he started to rebound with "Jump Up!!" and by his 3rd Geffen album, he was "back"!

Plus, he was already on the decline with MCA. It's not like he went from his circa 1974 success immediately into the chart crapper...

 

The Shangri-las going to Mercury.

 

No, Elton had a really rough time the entire time with Geffen. Many songs were rejected or dejected to B-sides. And Geffen did not promote his albums well. Elton was glad to be rid of them and go back to MCA, who promptly released Live in Australia (while Elton recovered from throat surgery) and then got fully behind Reg Strikes Back.

 

He may have had a tough time dealing with the label, but commercially, he did fine. That was my point...

 

They were never going to break through, no matter the label...

 

Have to thing that had a lot to do with the label too. Rotogravure was a mediocore album, but didn't stray far from the formula for him.

 

I'd be inclined to think that Paul's desire to sound current on Press To Play was more of a reaction to the critical and commercial drubbing he took with Broadstreet; the fact that Paul had returned to Capitol for Press was likely secondary. Like I've said before, by all rights Press To Play should have been the "comeback" Flowers In The Dirt was perceived to be three years later. Even though "comeback" in relation to McCartney doesn't really apply- the dude hasn't ever gone away in 56 years!

I believe it was the album after Rotogravure -Ringo The 4th- that caused irreparable damage to Ringo's career. Atlantic was more than willing to drop Ringo like a hot tater after that one. Sir Ritchie would spend the next few years label hopping, having records rejected outright and made to be revamped or released only in the far reaches of Germany and Canada (why did they have to punish us Canuckleheads with Old Wave?)

 

Their relative importance is exaggerated here on a frequent basis.

 

By that point, I'm sure they would have been happy with their record getting into stores and receiving a modicum of promotion.

 

True, but I suspect it was the album's mediocrity that sunk it, not the label. I think Atlantic paid a lot of money to lure Ringo, so it seems logical they'd also support the album as well as they could.

I tend to think Ringo had very little "margin of error" with his albums. J, P and G could "whiff" on an album here or there but maintain an audience because they'd built that trust over the years - people knew they had the talent and would come back eventually.

But Ringo always had a razor-thin margin because he didn't have the natural talent of the other 3. He couldn't sing as well and he wasn't as good a songwriter.

So when Ringo made undeniably good music - ala singles like "It Don't Come Easy" or the "Ringo" album - he sold. When the quality dipped, people bailed - they just had less inherent faith in him than the others, I think.

"Vienna" had already started a slide, so "Rotogravure" needed to be really strong to maintain an audience. It wasn't, and that was essentially the end of Ringo's hit-making era - people just weren't going to continue to buy Ringo music based on name only...

 

Well, Paul hasn't "gone away" in terms of being an active musician, but he clearly lost some "hit-maker" cred with "PtP". It was the first McCartney album to produce zero hits in the US.

Okay, "Egg" produced no hits either, but it came so close to the release of "Goodnight Tonight" that it had "hits by extension".

I guess you could argue that this should apply to "PtP" as well, since it came on the heels of the hit "Spies Like Us", but I think those 2 felt more "distanced". "Egg" came out barely 2 months after "Goodnight", whereas "Spies" preceded "PtP" by almost 9 months.

Anyway, you might be right about Macca's motivation to "sound modern" with "PtP", and perhaps the success of "Spies Like Us" - a very "80s sounding" song - emboldened him!

It's probably a combination of factors: new label, trying to push past the failure of "Broad Street", follow-up to "Spies"...

 

People forget that. The records were unavailable anywhere, most people who bought them at the time had found promo copies in cut out bins. They did, what, a couple of dozen shows throughout their existence? The show at the Record Writers Convention in 1973 should have set them up. But there was no record company push on the album, no touring. Therefore, no way to say what would have happened.