Holiday Layoffs: Universal Music Group’s Island Def Jam label let a dozen people go on Friday. Among the axed were ‘vice president’ of promotion Greg Thompson and A & R hitters Paul Pontius and Rob Stevenson. Island Records also ended it’s relationship with record label Stolen Transmission. Also, Silicon Alley Insider reports that Sony-BMG is cutting its mid-level exec ranks by 40-70 while revenues at the label dropped 10% to $851 million in Q2 and the company was able to save $8 million profit before taxes, which was largely because it wasn’t spending money promoting many new releases.

EMI and the Titanic: Check out this lengthly article that discusses the recent woes inflicting EMI. My favorite lines include ‘What’s the difference between EMI and the Titanic? The Titanic had a good band on board when it went down’ and ‘Under the watchful eye of Sir Martin Sorrell and his peers, lapdancing bills and cocaine fuelled creative sessions have been replaced by careful cost management.

Can you call it a comeback? The music industry is relying on old stars to bring in new business. Nothing gets investors more excited seeing older artists like Whitney Houston preparing for a comeback. Check out her sing her signature hit signature song, I Will Always Love You at a concert in Malaysia and decide for yourself.

WMG — the M stands for Miscellaneous, Mismanagement or Muck: This is what Fox’s columnist Roger Friedman calls Warner Brothers. Friedman says Warner is a disaster and that other companies are toughening out rather than blaming the usual suspects including “the decline of the record industry” or “the unanticipated rise in popularity of downloading,”. Friedman talks about the wins among other companies like Epic Records’ home run with Sean Kingston, New Line’s “Hairspray, A&M/Interscope success with Amy Whinehouse, and Hollywood Records homerun with the Plain White Ts hit single, “Delilah.

Friedman pulls the rug under Warner and proclaims:

The problem is that nobody at WMG is really in the record business. They are in the hit-and-run business. By now, the executives have pulled their millions out of the company and fired as many staffers as they can get away with.

Meanwhile, it’s fairly clear that WMG is indeed turning into a management and concert firm, with only viable CD sales in their catalog.

Edgar Bronfman Jr. has put his money into Irving Azoff’s Front Line Management, Chris Lighty of Violator and now Bulldog Entertainment’s luxury concerts. No new act would sign with WMG now, and the old standbys will probably give third and fourth thoughts to sticking around.

Damn, that hurts….