Let me admit up front that what follows is not serious investigative journalism. It's just that anyone who has been in the music business longer than Mark Zukerberg's been a billionaire knows that Scott Ambrose Reilly (aka Bullethead) throws a heck of a convention party. (I dare you to play all night poker with him at SXSW.) So when Billboard wrote about companies cutting back on Midem parties and used a photo of an empty room at Scott's X5 Music party as the poster child, I did some digging.
It turns out Billboard's photo of an empty room was not of the party at all, but rather a promo shot of the suite from the hotel's web site. The actual party photo (above) tells a rather different story. And so does the list those who were their tell me attended: executives from iTunes, Spotify. Amazon, Amazon, Google Music, Root Music, at least 3 of the 4 major labels, Yep Roc, Fontana, Naxos, SXSW, the list goes on…
Billboard has now pulled the piece (http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/backbeat-midem-weekend-report-scaling-back-1006035552.story).
Why care? Because bashing is easy and gets pageviews. The truth can be boring, though this party doesn't look like it was boring to me.
