Our business is changing by the day and the label heads really need a crystal ball or a psychic swami in the office on a daily basis. We’ll see more of this in the months to come. As time goes on, promoting acts becomes more expensive. Keeping artists on the radio and on the charts is a maddening task on a daily basis. Advertising costs in the various trade journals is astronomical. What compounds the problem is radio. They have short playlists and lots of recurrents (oldies).

Completely opposite is the Big Machine/Valory & Show Dog labels led by Toby Keith, Scott Borchetta and staff. This is a label that is committed to great music, solid artists and also committed to hard-hitting promotion and advertising. This crew is strong enough to attract other name artists, namely Reba McEntire and Trisha Yearwood. Look at the job they’ve done with Taylor Swift, Jewel, Jimmy Wayne, etc. The difference between (as we see it) this group and Equity is basically a corporate culture. The proof is in the charts and trade journal advertisements.

Since this is the last issue of 2008, we’d like to remember the season we are in. It is the time of year for reflection, caring and forgiveness. In the local newspaper, the lead entertainment writer had a great article which sort of explains the dilemma of artist Mindy McCready. Writer Beverly Keel stated that she isn’t going to write many more articles on Mindy and her situation. I agree with Beverly. Last week, Mindy reportedly attempted suicide by cutting her wrists. Going back a few months, Mindy went public about her involvement with pitcher Roger Clemens.  About this same time, she was put in jail for a parole violation. Looking at Mindy’s music career, she hasn’t had a record out in ages and she hasn’t been played on radio or in the charts in a long, long time. Perhaps her career is down the drain. We hope not. However, she needs to get her life back in order and she needs a lot of help from those who are close to her. We need to keep Mindy in our prayers.