Jive doctrine: carry the idol to the end. When beautiful music, witty and accurate market behavior and appropriate timing are put together, a record company can accurately capture and guide the public's music taste, thus defining the pop essence of a certain era with an absolutely dominant attitude. Motown has created the popular trend of soul music for 60 years; Def Jam made rap popular in the 1980s; Interscope combined rap and metal in the mid-1990s, and pushed this music to the top of the market. Under the action of the same law, the banner of the new century is undoubtedly in Jive's hands. This wholly-owned music brand, which has achieved great success, almost single-handedly planned teen-pop's "revolution" and pushed its idol corps to every corner of North America, Europe and Asia. Jive has run the most profitable artists such as Britney Spears,' 'N Sync' and' Backstreet Boys' at the turn of the century, and also has many artists such as rap, rock and roll, R.-and-B. Jive is better at understanding, expressing and influencing the public's music taste than any record company, so he climbed to the top of the whole record industry. Maybe they are the reason why your sixth-grade daughter sneaked out of the house in a halter top.
Jive's three records in 20 12 are the best in the national 10 records. They're spears'. ouch! ... I did it again, black &; Blue and 'N Sync have no strings attached. If you just think of it as a child's game, you can think again. In 2000, Clive Calder, a South African entrepreneur, privately owned this music brand and its parent company (Zomba Entertainment), and made nearly $800 million in record sales ($800 million! ), making it the world's leading independent record brand. With a market share of 6.7%, it is far ahead of many established record stores with superior backgrounds, such as Arista (4.9%) and Defjam (3.9%). Zomba in 20 13 years (including gospel brand Verity and blues brand Silvertone) is expected to account for 10 billion dollars. Such figures make competitors in the same industry have to take it seriously. "If we want to keep buying records, we must do a good job," said Ken Berry, the boss of the music giant EMI Records. "I think several other companies will take this matter seriously." Michael Nathanson, an analyst of Sanford Bernstein's recording industry, said that Jive's grasp of music trends is extremely agile and accurate: "They have an incredible record of success in quickly introducing new people and making pop stars." In the expanding world record market, Jive has created an astronomical sales record second only to the Beatles: Backstreet's album sold 60 million copies, Spears' two albums sold 30 million copies, and N SYNC's unconditional number is14 million copies. The question now is whether Jive can continue this performance as their clients and artists gradually surpass the age of teenagers. Let's go to Chelsea block in Manhattan to visit the command center of the youth pop music revolution, which is located in an unlisted smoky gray luxury office building. Barry Weiss, president of Jive, is in the office of 1 1 building. He is an energetic man, with some CDs neatly arranged on the big wooden table. From time to time, he will go to the bookshelf to find DVDs and look through the address book. Hanging on the wall are their trophies for 20 years: half a dozen gold records and platinum records. In the late July of 20 13, Jive just fully demonstrated their extraordinary market power: the release of 'N Sync's new album Celebrity. In the first week, the sales volume in the United States was 6.5438+0.8 million, which was much smaller than the figure of 2.4 million in the last album. Album sales fell by 76% in the second week, but Jive executives still have reason to be optimistic. "We're lucky," Weiss said. "Our situation is very good. As a non-joint-stock company, we have no pressure from quarterly financial reports or shareholders. There is no need to rush to release films or make wrong decisions because of the management's urging. " The chief designer of Jive Empire is Calder, a 54-year-old millionaire. He once avoided all kinds of social activities in the industry and the sensitive tentacles of the media to work (I heard that after this interview, he avoided it). Because Calder is allergic to these trifles, he has his own relatively isolated space in Jive's new york branch. Director Jive called it an "energy warehouse". If my impression makes him more or less like howard hughes, those who know him will say that he is actually wronged. Ajax Scott, editor of Music Weekly magazine in London, said: "He is friendly, but he doesn't like hanging out and chatting with people. "He has more important things to do." Epic director V.P. David McPherson worked in Jive for four years. He said: "It's hard to find him among a bunch of executives. He is gentle but not shy. "
At the negotiating table, Calder is recognized as a hardliner. If there is anything to lose, it is that he once shut out some rising stars, including will smith, Aaliyah and Kidlock. "Jive is not easy to get along with? No, I don't think so; Larry Rudolph, one of Britney Spears' agents, said: "They are too conservative. "You and their business settled means that the truth has come out. They won't release more movies just to make more money. I like to put more supply in short supply, not in excess. Their average profit margin per record is 5 to 10 times that of other major brands. "
Calder can be quite aggressive at a critical moment. When' 'N Sync' was kicked out by BMG RCA on 1999 for various reasons, many observers thought that Calder would be afraid to sign this combination for fear of alienating BMG, because BMG is the publisher of Jive. But Calder finally snatched 'N Sync from Sony's boss Tommy Motora and several others. Under the careful operation of Jive, it has become the most profitable idol group in recent years. Member Lance Bass recalled that Calder was very capable. "A lot of people smiled and said,' You're hopeless. There are as many as 20 million groups like you. Clive is the only letter.
Let our people. Jive provides us with a place to live and a broad space for development. We like them because Jive is the king of the market. "
Calder was the bassist of a bar band in Johannesburg in the 1960s. He didn't go to college, but he had enough money to support his family when he was a teenager. In the early 1970s, I went out with keyboard player Ralph Simon (who later co-founded Zomba Entertainment) to represent some concerts or make money by ripping Motown music. "The market was small, and we did everything in this industry," Simon recalled. "We find talented artists, find songs, and then go to the radio to promote, plan concerts and so on. But we must stay away from Africa, where the political situation is turbulent and we want to create an international brand. "
1975, they established Zomba Company in London (and opened a shop in new york six years later), named after the former capital of Malawi in central Africa. That's a great name. Later, I learned that there was a tribe with extraordinary hearing near Lake Malawi in Songba. Swing dance originated from township swing dance and is a dance and music form in South Africa. "We studied the business models of the top five companies and considered what behaviors could be used to organize new record companies most effectively," Simon recalled. "Our goal is to expand our global business." I learned from the practice of Motown, Berry Gordy, and organized authors, producers and artists in the company, which was stable and efficient, and saved a lot of money for the team to hire external authors.
Calder's big hand is organized, so the team's production power makes Jive dominate the youth pop music market. In order to find potential artists, he found Lou perlman who trained BSB and Super Boy. In terms of creation, he invited Swedish producer max martin to create relaxed and catchy music. Britney Spears, a former member of the Mickey Mouse Club, came to Jive for an audition and was hired by them, eventually becoming Jive's lucky star.
For these Junior Idol, the most severe test is to enter the adult market. The most severe test for Jive is Spears1the third album released on October 6th, 165438. Will she be Madonna's second or another Tiffany Jive asked the British artist Dido to write a song for Spears, of course, to satisfy the taste of adults. Similarly, in recent days, it will be clear whether the obstacle of alexander james mclean's relapse of alcohol addiction in BSB will bring dissolution crisis to this hard-pressed group. However, even if the climax of teenagers' pop music is over, Jive will make careful plans for the future. The deal with the rock brand Volcano in 20 12 was to diversify the music operated by Jive. The first achievement of this business: Lateralus of tools used to be all the rage.