According to Rhythmic's general manager, Paul Bassman, the deal with N2K will turn Rhythmic into a "full-fledged record label. We can competitively sign and record artists. It's a pretty amazing deal." Indeed, it's the first of its kind (but certainly not the last) for N2K Encoded Music, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of N2K Inc., among the largest of the Internet's music-content providers. N2K operates the online record store Music Boulevard and has arrangements with America Online, AT&T, and TNN, among many others around the world. N2K also operates a handful of other Web sites, including JazzCentralStation.com, Rocktropolis.com, and sites dedicated to Miles Davis, Leonard Bernstein, and Wynton Marsalis--it's one-stop shopping in the N2K world.
N2K became interested in Rhythmic because of the label's rather astonishing success with Jackopierce and Sister 7, who both left Rhythmic for majors. "They've lost people because they didn't have the wherewithal to hold on to them," says Harry Anger, N2K's executive vice president/general manager. "Now, they will have the ability to sign more artists. These are guys who could attract the right kind of artist, and we thought this was something we could put together quickly and would give us a leg up. They may not have things on the roster, but they have things they want to do, and we wanted to help them get to the next place."
Rhythmic will still get to sign and record artists, though N2K will have a say in the makeup of the new roster. Anger says that Rhythmic will present to N2K a list of bands they want to sign, and that N2K is obligated to OK a certain number of them. From that point, Rhythmic will record a band, using N2K's money, and N2K will use its own publicity staff to promote the album. In addition, N2K will distribute Rhythmic releases through the Sony Music-owned Red Distribution.
"We're looking for bands," Bassman says. "We can make better-sounding records than we did in the past...Now that we have substantial amounts of money, we can do what we imagined. It gives us more flexibility. I mean, we're not going to spend a million bucks on a record, but it gives us and the bands more freedom to be creative. It's a good thing."
Anger says he's not concerned about the fact that Rhythmic doesn't even have a roster right now. Indeed, Anger says, he and Ramone and N2K director of A&R Kevin Law, who instigated this deal at the beginning of the year, were impressed enough by the label's past track record of turning Jackopierce, Vertical Horizon, and Sister 7 (then Little Sister) into college-circuit faves without major-label distribution. Which only makes sense: Any label that can make money off those bands is certainly worth doing business with.
"We like their musical tastes," Anger says. "We like their thinking, we like their way of marketing outside the mainstream and then taking it into the mainstream. This is a way to market and develop artists in nontraditional ways, because they haven't been able to go to radio out of the box. If they can develop things to a certain level and we've established a sales base and a following, we can take it to the next level. We don't expect them to go platinum the first time out. This is about developing artists, taking the time to do things right."
--Robert Wilonsky
Deep Blue Everything!
The reason Deep Blue Something is releasing its second Interscope album, Byzantium, in Europe months before the album will be available in the States is simple: "Because we had far more success there than we did here," offers Paul Nugent, the band's manager and co-owner of RainMaker Records. Byzantium will debut overseas in June, but it will not be available over here until September, though a single from the album has already made it onto local radio. Nugent explains Deep Blue's Home was Interscope's first number-one album in England and that the record, which spawned the inescapable single "Breakfast at Tiffany's," also went top-five in German and the Netherlands.
Nugent says that of the 1.8 million copies of Home that were sold, more than a million landed in the hands of Europeans, bless their little hearts; and he credits that to the simple fact that European radio isn't fragmented into myriad disparate formats--a hit on one station is a hit on every station. "This is what we wanted," Nugent says of the unique roll-out, which fits with the band's plan to take over the globe one square inch at a time. "It's hard to cover the world at once." But they'll try.
--R.W.
Scene, heard
Two weeks ago, in our Music Awards supplement, I wrote a few things about the forthcoming Toadies album, the band's follow-up to 1994's Rubberneck. I was under the impression it was a nearly finished version of the record, which was recorded in Austin over the spring with Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary. But it turns out the way-advance cassette is in the roughest stages right now: Some of the songs on the tape may not even make it to the record, and those that will be on the final release are still in crude, unmixed form. So disregard the sneak preview: Reviewing an unfinished album is like writing about a movie's script. We regret the miscommunication.
--R.W.
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