Tommy Mottola talks about Michael Jackson in his book Hitmaker - Comprehensive summary

[144000]

WOW - I never knew this!

MJ really was a great friend and a wonderful human being! - I wish the world had more people like him!

Yes. Michael used to pay for the burial of legend artists in the music industry from the Motown era and from the Motown label, because their families didn't have the money for a proper burial, when they died.

 

[Ashtanga]

I wish the world had more people like him!

Me too.... :heart:

 

[Petrarose]

Yes. Michael used to pay for the burial of legend artists in the music industry from the Motown era and from the Motown label, because their families didn't have the money for a proper burial, when they died.

Beat me to it--I was going to say that^^. He gave financial to thousands of people by calling his people & telling them to send XYZ some help, and he would do it without the people knowing. Now that is true charity.

How is the Tommy book doing anyway?

 

[jamba]

Actually, when you look at his whole career and his investments and assets, I think MJ did very well all told, esp. with the media sharks, the banker sharks--charging him 16.5% interest, the many lawsuits, the unreliable advisors, the family hangers-on, etc. He hung on to all or most of his assets--the Sony 50% of ATV/Sony, his own Mijack catalogue, Encino, Neverland, his possessions (although I worry about his art collection), and on top of all this he left behind a great musical legacy (and wrote 2 books) and GAVE $300 M to charity. I know he faced so many issues, health issues, the accusations, etc, but he continued to hang on, make great music, create, and when you consider all this, you have to say, WOW! well done! I admire him for the way he led his life in the face of all the difficulties and naysayers.

 

[Petrarose]

Actually, when you look at his whole career and his investments and assets, I think MJ did very well all told, esp. with the media sharks, the banker sharks--charging him 16.5% interest, the many lawsuits, the unreliable advisors, the family hangers-on, etc. He hung on to all or most of his assets--the Sony 50% of ATV/Sony, his own Mijack catalogue, Encino, Neverland, his possessions (although I worry about his art collection), and on top of all this he left behind a great musical legacy (and wrote 2 books) and GAVE $300 M to charity. I know he faced so many issues, health issues, the accusations, etc, but he continued to hang on, make great music, create, and when you consider all this, you have to say, WOW! well done! I admire him for the way he led his life in the face of all the difficulties and naysayers.

I agree. His story is never looked at in totality, rather the same points, like debt, is picked out and displayed without any narrative explaining the circumstances of it & how it fits into the rest of his story.

Ivy I cannot believe that the reason Michael's interest was so high was only for the reasons you quoted, although I think they may have played a role. I feel that even at that time, someone like Branca would have been able to get a better rate, due to his ability & clout. I won't be surprised if the person who made the deal with the bank, got a bonus, & left Michael with a high interest rate.

 

[8701girl]

Yes. Michael used to pay for the burial of legend artists in the music industry from the Motown era and from the Motown label, because their families didn't have the money for a proper burial, when they died.

Aww that was so sweet :wub:

 

[144000]

I agree. His story is never looked at in totality, rather the same points, like debt, is picked out and displayed without any narrative explaining the circumstances of it & how it fits into the rest of his story.

Ivy I cannot believe that the reason Michael's interest was so high was only for the reasons you quoted, although I think they may have played a role. I feel that even at that time, someone like Branca would have been able to get a better rate, due to his ability & clout. I won't be surprised if the person who made the deal with the bank, got a bonus, & left Michael with a high interest rate.

i wouldn't be surprised at the bolded sentence, either. So many people took pleasure in making Michael a target with their corrupt ways, by using the fact of his high profile status.

 

[AliCat]

An article enlightening of why Tommy Mottola was let go at Sony and how Sony became more cost effective at the cost of nurturing an Artist...
Tommy Gone
Sony Music chief Tommy Mottola quits. The label boss who made a star (and a wife) of Mariah Carey and an enemy of Michael Jackson will start his own imprint
By Gary Susman | Jan 10, 2003

Tommy Mottola, the Sony Music chief whose successes with stars like Mariah Carey and Jennifer Lopez have sometimes been overshadowed by personal events like his five-year marriage to Carey and last year's feud with Michael Jackson, announced Thursday that he is stepping down from the music giant he's run for more than a decade. The news comes at a time when the record industry, and Sony in particular, are in turmoil.

Mottola, 52, was a personal manager for acts like Hall & Oates, Carly Simon, and John Mellencamp before he joined the label in 1988, and he continued to serve as a starmaker even from the boardroom. He is generally credited with orchestrating the careers of Carey (who became a star under his watch in 1990 and who was his wife from 1993 to 1998), Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, and Ricky Martin, while orchestrating successful comebacks for label stalwarts like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

His touch wasn't always golden, however. Since he assumed the title of chief executive in 1998, Sony has slipped from second to third in market share among the big five labels (First-place Universal has some 30 percent of the U.S. market, about twice the size of Sony's share). Despite current hit records by the Dixie Chicks and J. Lo, the label's losses in 2002 have been reported at between $100 million and $130 million.

Plus, Mottola brought unwanted attention to the company, however inadvertently, through such events as his split from Carey (he's now married to Mexican pop star Thalia). Carey eventually left the label but accused him of stealing her musical and stylistic ideas and giving them to his new diva, Lopez. The Dixie Chicks made public their accusation that Sony had cheated them out of royalties, though a threatened suit and countersuit were settled out of court. Most notoriously, there was Michael Jackson last summer calling Mottola a racist and a devil for allegedly underpromoting Jackson's poor-selling ''Invincible,'' even though Sony had spent a reported $30 million to promote the CD.

Mottola reportedly had two years to go on his contract, which paid him an estimated $10 million a year, but instead of staying on as chief executive, he'll now be running his own imprint within Sony, one in which he hopes to combine talent management with recording deals, concert promotion, and online sales. ''I have been thinking about taking up this new challenge for about a year and really made the decision to go forward only recently,'' he said in a statement.

The decision may not have been his to make, however. ''This is a total decision on my own,'' he told the New York Post, saying he'd decided before Christmas to move on. But one Sony executive told the New York Times that the label wanted a chief who would trim expenses and not lavish so much money on a handful of artists. Another Sony source told Fox News that Mottola was forced out and didn't learn his fate until yesterday. ''He was told to go see Sir Howard Stringer [chief executive of the Sony Corporation of America], and when he got there, they handed him a press release,'' the source said.

Stringer spoke highly of Mottola to the Times, saying, ''Tommy has the ability to develop and nurture artists. When he entered the music industry, that's what record companies did and he can do that better than anyone else.'' In other words, that is not what record companies do anymore. Like Sony, the industry as a whole suffered a sales slump in 2002 for the second straight year. The pressure is on at all labels to cut costs, largely at the expense of artists. The names being mentioned as possible replacements for Mottola include former AOL chief operating officer Bob Pittman and former Warner Home Video president Warren Liberfarb -- people from outside Sony and outside the record business who are more known for their financial acumen than their love of music. The labels are happy to let execs like Mottola or Clive Davis (who was pushed out of BMG but was also given his own imprint, J Records, where he then made a star of Alicia Keys) nurture artists on farm-team imprints, so long as they don't spend the whole company into the ground in the process.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,406807,00.html

 

[mj_brainiac]

Probably due to the fact that MTV and other "music channels" are not playing videos anymore, so it didn't make too much sense to spend millions on music videos. And to give Marlon Brando 1 mio. (assuming that is true) to appear for a couple of seconds in a music videos to say something which, to this day, I couldn't decipher what he was saying, is total crazyness (the same goes for paying Mel Gibson big bucks to appear in a music video). Also really it's easy to tell someone to come up with creative ways to market something when that other person then is stuck with something that isn't so easy to accomplish.

If we're talking abou 2001-2002, MTV and other music channels were still playing videos. TRL and other shows were still on the air and had high ratings

 

[Petrarose]

I thought they spent 25mil on promotion, but now this article says 30mil.

Is this book on the bookseller list?

 

[144000]

I thought they spent 25mil on promotion, but now this article says 30mil.

Is this book on the bookseller list?

as usual, they're estimating. They don't know.
Boy, the retarded meter was way up back in 2003. The author in that article calling 10,8, or even 2 million sales 'poor'? And the stock market fluctuates. Does that stop people from going on it and gambling? And people go to Vegas and gamble everyday. So why does a company exec cut off life blood when there is a lull, instead of having faith re: Sony?

 

[Petrarose]

Yeah, I remember some reporter was saying to Michael once about how Invincible did not sell well, and Michael proudly stated how much million the album sold. I have gotten used to their methods, where they always tried to imply that albums that did not sell as much as Thriller were insignificant.

 

[shelly_webster]

sorry, I made a mystake.