Word: label
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Last fall, after financial constraints forced Isaac Mizrahi to discontinue his label and Todd Oldham to shut down his high-end line, discussion in the Manhattan fashion world--a group for whom a big-think question is whether or not model Esther Canadas' lips are bigger than Barbara Hershey's in Beaches--suddenly turned weighty. From where, the fashion community gravely wondered, were its future leaders going to come? In addition to the departures of Mizrahi and Oldham, designers Marc Jacobs and Michael Kors were now splitting their time between their own collections and those of the French houses Louis...
...bottom line is that recording labels, managers, producers and radio stations are fearful of losing their traditional hold over the musicians themselves. It used to be that in order to sell their music, bands had to sign with a recording label with the right contacts to get their songs out to DJs and industry heads for local and national promotion. Labels who caught up-and-comers could sign them to contracts which bound them to turn over a huge percentage of their profits and subsequently regulate all aspects of album production, touring...
...have to risk incurring the wrath of musicians themselves. No longer completely dependent on music companies, bands will be likely to break out on their own if they feel they are being too restricted. Chuck D of Public Enemy recently split with Def Jam Records because he felt the label was unresponsive to the group's needs. The band has had continued success since the breakup with the label, keeping up fan interest by posting tracks on their Web site and selling regular and MP3 albums through Atomicpop.com. "Digital distribution levels the playing field," Chuck D told Rolling Stone...
...unusual editorial, blamed the rapper for "exploiting the world's misery." Perhaps, but at 26 Eminem (whose real name is Marshall Mathers) has his own burdens to carry. As the first rapper on superproducer Dr. Dre's Aftermath Records, Eminem's success is vital to the future of the label. And as a white rapper, with the discredited image of Vanilla Ice still looming in the background, he very much needs to score points in the credibility column. So forging beyond the familiar drive-bys of gangsta realism, Eminem mixes comedy and mayhem into jarring scenarios that are made...
Along with the Modern Jazz Quartet and Charles Mingus, vocalist Connor was one of the first artists signed to Atlantic Records' fledgling jazz division in 1955. This compilation, drawn from her 12 albums for the label--most long unavailable--is proof she could hold her own in such rarefied company. Her virtues: a voice nearly as pure and clear as Ella Fitzgerald's, yet spiked at times with a smoky, un-Ella-like sensuality; and a deeply personal, even abstract sense of phrasing. How can you not like a singer who's brassy enough to belt Summertime as hard...