Check out the LA Times “Musician Is Front Man at Geffen”

Ron Fair who is now head of one of Universal Music Group’s labels, has rekindled the debate over who should run the music industry: business executives or people with experience creating music.

Jimmy Iovine says “I’d always rather teach a music guy how to sell a record than try to teach a business guy how to make one,”. Ron knows what a star looks like, and he knows how to produce a hit. The rest of the business is easy compared to that.”

Others stake a different claim.

“We need executives who think about groups as brands, not just musical acts,” said Andy Gould, manager of such Geffen acts as Rob Zombie. “There are very few execs who know what to do beyond send a song to KROQ and pray it gets played. I think Ron is up for the challenge, but it’s going to be tough if he’s mostly in the studio.”

Fair says he will shift Geffen’s focus from a mishmash of genres to singer-driven albums and the most commercial of genres: pop.

“To succeed today you have to get the biggest exposure possible, and that means pop,” said Fair. “Pop music dominates radio, it dominates television, it dominates commercials and the Internet.”

There’s so much competition for people’s consciousness now that a band has to grab anything that gives them exposure,” Fair said. “There’s no such thing as selling out, now. There’s just getting heard.”

“It’s good to have someone in that position who actually loves music,” said Gould, the manager. “If it works, the music guys might just win back this business.”

As sad it seems, Ron Fair is right. Selling out doesn’t exist anymore and competing for the people’s consciouseness is a hard task in this ADD Generation. Also, label heads must have a sense of music and business. One who only knows music will fail and one who knows only business and is tonedeaf will fail. Aint that the truth.