Matchbox Twenty Rob Thomas and EMI Evan Lamberg start a label with no Economic Pressure…..

Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty and EMI publishing Exec Evan Lamberg will be starting a label called R Tel Records that will develop, and make long-term commitments to, new songwriter/artists.
Under a deal with Sony BMG’s Epic Records, Thomas and Lamberg will consult with Epic president Charlie Walk and others at the major label. If R Tel and Epic agree they love an act, then the major will fund the project, releasing the record through RED or Epic. The first act funded under this deal is British songwriter/artist Garfield Mayor, whose release is expected this fall.
While Thomas says he hopes to have two to three releases each year, R Tel isn’t under any delivery or time constraints to keep that benchmark.

“If you sell 30,000 records, we don’t blink,” Lamberg says. “We’re making a second record. That’s where patience factors in. We’re not under the rule that we’ve got to ship a bunch of records in the next 90 days or our cash flow won’t be right –there’s no economic pressure.”(Billboard)

Very smart, working out the financials when the artist and the bank can be successful moving 30,000 units instead of 3 million units.

EMI paid ousted Music Chief Alain Levy 4.6 Million who was forced to leave….

Levy was given “compensation” or loss of office of £2.5m and a £1.1m “incentive remuneration” alongside his basic salary of £912,100, nd his benefits have continued beyond him leaving the embattled company on January 11. (Guardian)

UK Buys More CD’s than US……

Music fans in the U.K. are top of the world CD buying charts for the fourth year in a row, despite the nroads being made by downloading songs from the Internet.
Figures produced by the IFPI for international CD sales point to the U.K. population buying an average of 2.7 discs per head, beating the United States and Norway who were joint second with recorded sales of 2.1 discs per head.