A record bag of memories

This was supposed to be a quick note to my LinkedIn contacts about me leaving Universal Music Group by the end of January 2024.  

When I started with the first sentence, memories started to cascade from my head onto this virtual piece of paper and soon it became a journey through over 20 years of music business. If you are interested and have a minute, please indulge me on my ride through the past two decades. 

“Plug In Baby” - Muse, 2001 

When I started in the music biz in 2001, a graduate from Hamburg University holding a master in business administration, the party literally was over.  

The earlier invention of mp3, the growth of internet bandwidth and two bright kids called Parker and Fanning rolling out Napster, delivered a triple sucker punch to the heritage business. 

But I wasn’t in it for the party in first place so took this as an opportunity to watch and learn how a business adjusts to a sudden technological disruption. It was probably a once in a lifetime chance to do so albeit the general sentiment in the business oscillated from scared to bleak and back over the following years. 

That’s when I joined UMG Germany’s progressive label “Motor Music” as a junior product manager working with local artists. And it was quite an impressive bunch of local artists from Sportfreunde Stiller to Muse to Rammstein and some prime German Hip-hop. For me this was a dream come true. All my teenage life had been centered around music and growing up on the countryside, I couldn’t imagine anything cooler than working in music and living in a vibrant metropolis like Hamburg. The first backstage pass, the first time clinking bottles with an artist after the show. It was pure magic. 

“Let It Die” - Feist, 2004 

Bute the facade began to show the first cracks: between 2001 and 2004 the music industry faced multiple threats to its old business model: private CD burners, P2P networks, the breaking-up of the lucrative album format by the hoped-for savior iTunes and a botched cry-baby campaign suggesting “copy kills music” meant trouble. Physical sales were dwindling and downloads (really only a hinge product between the ownership and access model) couldn’t make up for the loss in revenue. And what were “A Thousand Song in Your Pocket” compared to access to 100 million tracks a couple of years later?  

The bottom fell out of the bucket and within ten years the market lost over half of its value and most companies needed to heavily cut staff to keep afloat. Panic. 

Panic move: the advent of the “talent “shows promised to shine a light on potential stars and harness the power of the biggest mass medium: TV. Maximum exposure in classic media was the weapon of choice fighting decreasing sales. 

New “superstars” or “bands” popped up in many markets, sometimes more than one per year due to competing formats. While “boy bands” had already been launched in the 90ies, now it all happened with the public watching every step. It was a bonanza for the TV stations, and everyone involved made good money including the labels. But the gold rush came at a cost: a good voice was mistaken for artistry and onlookers for fans. The shows paid off nicely for TV stations, but have they helped artists and their music? Have they created “catalog”? 

But there were also golden moments back then: I remember picking up Beck from the Hamburg Airport for a live show and promotion visit. I was a huge fan (still am!) and his then new album “Sea Change” is still inside my top ten. That night we went to a restaurant on “Große Freiheit” together with his tour manager Tristin and enjoyed good food and the stories that Beck told us about shows in Japan and lots of other funny and peculiar things. Being able to spend casual time with artists you might even adore has always been a major reward for my work. I do not have a lot of pictures with artists, but I do have a lot of memories of conversations and good times.  

“Everybody’s Changing” - Keane, 2004 

Classic media started to have their own problems: In 2004 Facebook was founded and 2005 YouTube was launched. Both were preceded by MySpace (2003). Clearly, the attention of the consumer was migrating from TV, radio or print to online and social media platforms. While the old marketing and PR game was based on convincing individual gatekeepers in media about the “next big thing”, it now became a tad more complex. More channels, more gatekeepers and at one point of time algorithms that were simply “unpromotable”.  

MTV, once motor and sat-nav of pop culture was becoming more and more irrelevant when it turned out that the monopoly on pop culture had evaporated when their audience had multiple sources to choose from. 

During that time UMG had moved to Berlin and I remember the first brutally cold winter there. Sometimes the sun wouldn’t come out for weeks and the air in the Eastern part of the city was thick with smoke from the oven heatings burning brown coal. It still was East Berlin after all even over a decade after the wall came down. One particularly cold evening I walked home from the office to my flat when I saw a “balcony concert” taking place. A 4- or 5-piece band was playing the front of a house with each of them occupying one balcony. They clearly chose the wrong night as they must have been freezing off their butts. But that was typically Berlin. You would just do things. 

Another unforgettable moment was Leslie Feist’s show at the Maria am Ostbahnhof in 2004. She was at a stage in her career where her audience was growing but everyone in the room was till super excited to see her for the first time. It was a magic night and I swear that everyone, boy or girl, fell in love with Leslie and her voice that night. I sure did. 

“Take Me Out” - Franz Ferdinand, 2004 

The record industry became more anemic with every year, but the live business prospered. Historically, promoters were looked down upon as their business was considered “dirty” and high-risk while record companies made their money in a more reputable and organized way. Now it was their turn to laugh at the labels while counting cash money. Generally, the music business seemed to be a laughingstock at that time. I remember many articles in papers that portrayed record companies as incompetent and too dumb to adjust to the new reality. There was a lot of schadenfreude involved on media’s side and it was insinuated that a complacent business had it coming. Fast forward to now: While the music industry has found a new business model and has been growing for over a decade, I’m wondering how it’s looking for other media industries like TV or news publishing... 

“Blinded by the Light” - The Streets, 2004 

Having worked with artists like Beginner, Rammstein, Nelly Furtado, Beck or Apocalyptica at UMG Germany, I got the chance to move to London in 2005 to work in a marketing capacity at the Intl HQ. Jurgen Grebner, who oversees the intl marketing for Interscope Records, and my former boss Thorsten Koenig suggested me for an open position, and one day I got to meet the legendary Max Hole for my job interview. It was easy to feel intimidated as Max was one of the most powerful people at UMG but once he started the conversation, I felt welcome and respected. I believe that during his tenure, Max Hole has had a huge positive influence on the company and has inspired many people who went on to lead themselves in the following years.  

That’s when UMG became truly global for me, and I was able to connect to so many people around the world besides my fabulous colleagues in London. It was my first time living in another country and it not only broadened my horizon but also honed my intercultural communication skills and taught me how much work and complex planning is needed for a global artist success. 

The noughties were a prolific time in terms of music and outstanding artists at Universal Music: Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Rihanna, Shaggy, 50 Cent, Snoop, Gwen Stefani, Kanye, Nelly Furtado, Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Limp Bizkit, Sugababes, Girls Aloud, Keane, James Morrison, Jack Johnson and Amy Winehouse. Even if it’s only an incomplete list, it’s testament to the artistic power and the global hits during that decade. 

My London life was fab: working out of the St James Sq offices meant that my daily commute was basically a sightseeing tour. After work we enjoyed a regular pint at the “Red Lion” on Duke of York St (or as the more distinguished among us called it in faux French, the “Lion Rouge”) and occasional after-show parties at the K-West hotel in Sheperd’s Bush. The only drawback was living in E14 and spending an eternity on a Radio Taxi black cab on the way home.    One evening when I was watching the horror movie “The Ring” on TV, I found my mobile starting to ring relentlessly. Quite a disturbing experience considering the story of the film. When I picked it up there were dozens of missed calls and explicit text messages waiting for me. I was shocked! Why would people – apparently mostly from Wales – insult me in such a way? I switched off the Telly and locked up the door, but it wasn’t until the next day that I found out what happened. The Bloodhound Gang, a band I looked after as intl marketing manager, had apparently projected my mobile number into a speech bubble on their backdrop at a Cardiff show saying “How do you like the show? Call +44 xxxxxx!” Obviously, the audience felt very motivated to relay their comments to me that evening. 

“Back to Black” - Amy Winehouse, 2006 

In 2006 I moved back to Berlin to head the department responsible for the international marketing of locally signed artists. It was quite a challenge to settle into my first leadership position and convincing my colleagues around the world, to work for my artists. It just added to the burden that I needed to manage the expectations of the local artists and their teams as well who partly felt very much entitled to international success. 

But I loved the diversity of my job: in 2006 my three biggest sellers globally were Rammstein, German wunderkinder Tokio Hotel and André Rieu. Although completely different, all three were masters of their game and most of the countries I have visited so far, I saw with them. They also taught me a lot about the importance of going all-in for success and not taking a “no” for an answer. And that was also important for our job: like a free climber you use the latest success as a foothold to step into new markets for more success. 

Top memories: Breaking André Rieu in Australia together with my friend Cyrus and accompanying him at the Royal Variety Show in Blackpool, watching Rammstein lighting up Madison Square Garden in NYC and meeting Jimmy Iovine and Martin Kierszenbaum together with Tokio Hotel in a Paris Hotel Room discussing how we to conquer the US. 

Besides the work with artists and their teams, the most gratifying was to build my own team and enjoy success together. Helping team members grow and seeing them excel is a truly rewarding feeling.  

“Video Games” - Lana del Rey, 2012 

At the beginning of the second decade the concept of music streaming finally took hold. Spotify had already been founded in 2006 aiming to create a licensed alternative to filesharing platforms. 

At that time YouTube was perceived a threat to music business as you could literally get all music for free on there. And it wasn’t until 2010 that YouTube started to share ad revenue with creators and rights holders and pay publishers. 

It was difficult to believe that a paid-for music streaming service would be able to get any traction competing with free. And it was clear that online copyright protection was essentially a game of whack-a-mole. 

Turned out it was indeed possible to compete with free. Consumers weren’t pirates per se but could be persuaded to pay for a product that gave them a convenient and flexible way to access the entire history of music. All history? No, the move from ownership to access proved to be not only a technical and economic challenge but also a question of faith. Many artists wanted to hold back on Spotify et al trying to keep the water in the bucket by plugging one hole while it was pouring out through a dozen others. But it was impossible to keep selling CDs by preventing fans from accessing music via streaming. A bit like the download, a CD has never been a sexy or emotional product. Too small for the artwork to shine and while it was already digital and somewhat mobile to use (anybody remember a Discman?), it didn’t make the important step and cut the cord. In digital music, Streaming is just the better option. It was different on the analog side. The more digital music consumption became, the more the demand for an analog alternative grew. We’ve been seeing vinyl sales grow from almost zero to surpassing CD sales in the US a couple years ago, only being held back by production capacity. To me that always made sense as it was the perfect complementary product for music streaming. In a world of unlimited access and distraction, a human being sometimes needs to simmer down and focus on one thing to really enjoy it. I really believe that analog and digital can only thrive alongside each other like two sides of a scale. 

Now Global superstar Lana Del Rey was originally signed for the German speaking markets by my colleague Neffi meaning she was a “local” artist for us. I remember the excitement that build when that song “Video Games” played across the corridor from his office, and you could sense how this track would somehow change the world. That polaroid picture of Lana with my goddaughter Karlin backstage at a Berlin open air show? Pure gold. 

“Demons” - Imagine Dragons, 2014 

The expansion of the digital and the change from linear to on-demand and ownership to access helped shrinking the relevance of mass media in the second decade of the new millennium. 

You had to pour more and more into the machine to get out less. For a time, rev-share-for-media was de rigeur proving that TV could still sell music. But after some time, it was clear it only worked with products that appealed to a TV audience and everyone else had to try and build a base on digital and social media. 

But while you can arrive at a sustainable digital ROAS when you sell tickets or physical products, trying to do the same for streaming consumption does not work. It also proved difficult to understand the algorithms on the individual platforms as they are basically moving targets and you can only react to what you think you understand. Being picked by social media algorithms or an editorial playlist on a streaming service is basically the same. You do not have any direct influence on it happening, but it puts you in front of thousands of people. And that’s one of the biggest disruptions in the music biz: for an artist to reach a potential fan has become more difficult than ever and at the same time easier than ever. But you are always at the mercy of algorithms. Which begs the question what’s in the interest of the algorithms. I would be surprised if it wasn’t maximizing time spent in service and customer retention. It’s probably not artistic quality. 

The hyper-individualization of people’s feed on social media poses another challenge for industry and artists alike: fandom has always had the social element of being part of a community and while the massive TV shows of the Nineties could break artists by making them headline news, it’s a painstakingly slow process to grow your fanbase in the hyper-individualized world. 

“Work” – Rihanna, Drake, 2016 

Adjusting to that development has been a theme at record companies ever since. It added a new dimension to the jobs of A&Rs and marketing managers and called for completely new roles like data scientists. It also added more complexity to the jobs as the digital transformation didn’t mean that the new model replaced the old model, but you had to keep a foot in the physical game as well. With less workforce. That’s quite a task to accomplish and the reason for the constant change within their structure. 

It was during that time when I was entrusted with bigger responsibilities, first as General Manager at UMG Germany’s Domestic Division and then as head of Universal Music Austria. Besides the growing scope of my responsibilities a big step was the fact, that you were suddenly expected to take the final decision, to come up with solutions for all problems every day. So, over the past decade I had the chance to grow both as a professional and as a person and found out that combining strategic decision-making and pragmatic execution in all areas of a business is the best job to have. Ever since I picked up a guitar to learn my first chords aged 14, I wanted to follow my passion for music. When it dawned on me that I probably never would make a living on the artist side, I decided to combine my passion with business skills.  

“Vienna”, Ultravox, 1981 

The challenge in a market like Austria is that you’re always within the gravitational field of the bigger market, i. e. Germany. I guess it’s the same in Canada or Belgium to some extent. 

So, building a position in the market that would allow us to be the first point of call for artists was the mission. To achieve that, we had to change the mindset and structure of the company and communicate a lot with the artist community to regain trust and be part of the scene. 

Leading a company is a lot about dealing with people. HR is called People and Culture nowadays for a reason and that’s 100% spot-on in my view. These are two of the most important ingredients in a business: the people and the culture they create. And working on these two things became a major task for me. Our artist roster filled, and we had some good successes. Some financially, some culturally, some both. And we developed the strategy to create a service offering around the needs of local artists in Austria. That meant not only A&R and marketing but also live services and eCommerce. For the artists that equalled more support from one partner and for us it meant that more money to earn once things would fly. 

Fun fact: our Austrian company became the Global leader in Lo-Fi repertoire withing UMG, and we kicked off some international collabs and initiatives. But just like Trip-Hop had a center of gravity in Vienna back in the days (remember Kruder & Dorfmeister?), Lo-Fi kind of suits this laid-back and analog city. 

All this was only possible with a supportive team that was eager to push forward and compete above our weight class and they deserve my full gratitude.  

And I think everything starts with integrity. On that you can build trust and that again is the basis for success when mixed with persistence and talent. It is a learning of mine that there are many people around who see it the same way and it's great to be in business with them. Those relationships are usually longer and mean less maintenance than others. And they pay off.

Clearly, the music industry will keep changing as the new normal will be negotiated by all stakeholders: Artist-centric payout model, the opening-up of new revenue streams and improvement of monetization of music, virtual entertainment and also very limited, tangible analog gems like “Mastercuts”. 

So, changing again myself doesn’t feel bad at all. It’s merely an invitation to go after all those ideas that I have put on a back burner over the years. Besides the professional experience, I keep incredible moments, inspiring encounters, personal friendships, and a lot of great music with me as carry-on. 

I am immensely grateful to UMG for allowing me to embark on that journey and like always it’s not the organizational entity but the people that make a company great. That is particularly true for UMG, and I am blessed with having met so many great people over the years. 

A couple of them I have tagged below. Forgive me if I have missed someone. 

Thank you for the ride so far stay tuned for the next chapters. 

Cornelius 

Thorsten König

Jurgen Grebner

Tom Land

Didier Dehauteur

Olivier Robert-Murphy

Olly Lester

Max Hole

Darren Aboud

Neffi Temur

Patrick Mushatsi-Kareba

Dirk Schömbs

Ian Brenchley

Jamie Hole

Rebecca Allen

Adam Freeman

Sam Jackson

Brett Alperowitz

Tom Keil

Christian Meine

Ulrich Genschel

Carsten Senger

Jörg Haußknecht

Simone Behrens

Steffi Liebenow

Andrew Kronfeld

Pierre Rieu

Mark Wilkinson

Jan Honsel

Alexander Neipp

Steffi Breitzke

Kate Rock

Nina Hansdotter Usher

Kate Mercer

Thijs Mantel

Alex Weston

Angus Blue

Ben Mawson

Nora Otto

Benjamin Wahlert

Thomas Thyssen

Gerd Bohmann

Lara Heußner

Sandra Leonhardt

Britta Ostermann

Sebastian Kahlich

Boris von Wiedebach

Devraj Sanyal

Friedrich Kraemer

Frank Engel

Götz "GG" Gottschalk, MBA

Holger Christoph

Henning Wehland

Holger Bjoern Wustlich

Ingrid Rothe

Iain Snodgrass

Igor Guizzardi

Ken Ogihara

Leonidas Chantzaras

Nilgün Öz

Ulysses Hüppauff

Uli Muecke

Dr. Won Sin

Philipp Zwez

Tina Koppelin

Karsten Kuskop-Schulze

Jacopo Furlanetto

Uli Kleppi

Joseph Kap-herr

Hannah Neaves

Felix Wolfersberger

George Ash

Matthias Rotermund

Alexander Meisen

Holger Kersting

Nathalie Rau

Ulrich Drechsler

David Dittrich

Joe Chialo

Katja Völcker (she/her)

Stefanie Zoll

Alec Völkel

Nico Gössel-Hain

Paul Gallister

Toby Romeo

Jochen Trommer♻️

Christine Thomas

Daniela Bischof

Elias Oldofredi

Daniel Serafin

Sigi Schuller

Alexander Kralisch

Jockel Weichert

Markus Schug

Katerina Adamopoulou

Maik Pallasch

Tim Wermeling

Michelle T.

Elizabeth Chew

Archie Gormley

Florian Illich

Caryn Tomlinson

Siegfried Wacker

Samira Leitmannstetter

Schindler Juergen

Matt Voss

Tina Funk

Alexander Richter

Sascha Stadler

Alex Myers

Ross Foster

Stephanie Rohwer

Yvonne Yuen

Gabriela Carrilho

Thorsten Wessel

Christian Seitz

Cyrus Meher-Homji, OAM

Jaeki Hildisch

Ed Scott

Kim Alexandra Schaal

Katie K.