In a unique and telling glimpse inside what makes the record industry tick and how that is changing, the LA Times reports that, "earlier this month, after the president of V2 Records read a widely viewed website of the influential music publication Hits Magazine, he typed a short e-mail and launched a small war."
"Hits' website had joked that V2, the label releasing the new White Stripes album, "ought to be renamed V 1/2 as the understaffed company makes a desperate attempt to set up the most critical release in its brief history…. If V2 was a functioning record company, the Stripes release would be much-much bigger, critics criticize."
"V2's president, Andy Gershon, thought he had a pretty good idea why his label, once praised by Hits, was now in the magazine's cross hairs: He no longer was paying the publication's owners for advertising and promotional services."
"You trash people that don't pay you. Pure and simple," Gershon wrote to Hits' editor, Lenny Beer, in an e-mail copied to scores of music executives and journalists. "You used to be nice and write nice things, WHEN we paid you…. You are nothing more than a two bit hustler at the end of the day, relying on strong arm tactics of fear."
"A Hits executive called Gershon's e-mail an untrue and inappropriate personal attack, insisting that the publication did not slam those who refused to purchase Hits' services."
"But that's not the predominant perception among many industry insiders, who are relishing what they see as the publication's long-overdue comeuppance."
"...The increasingly public criticism of Hits is a sign of how much things have changed in the way power is wielded and information flows in the music inustry..."
...(Hits did acknowledge that) "...we do support people who support us....It's one of the things that all industry magazines do, in our industry and lots of others."
"Not so in the case of the industry's premiere trade publication, Billboard magazine. Tamara Conniff, co-executive editor, said Billboard had a strict policy of separating editorial content from advertiser influence."
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