In a series called Mondo Bullshittio, let’s talk about some of the most glaring hypocrisies and faux pas in pop culture… and all that it affects.
Of all the months for “Bowie’s estate” (a polite way of saying Iman + Bowie’s traitorous spawns, Alexandria and Duncan) to choose to sell his publishing catalogue, January is undeniably the cruelest. For, yes, it was already cruel enough to begin with to relinquish the catalogue at all, but to do so for a paltry $250 million (or “upwards of”) not only adds insult to the injury of it being Bowie’s birth and death month, but also to the notion that people do not actually value art for what it’s worth. Especially when they can make quick cash off a dead artist’s entire life’s work.
Putting a price on something as precious as Bowie’s four hundred-plus songs is almost impossible. But one figure that certainly doesn’t come to mind is $250 million. More likely, at least a billion (incidentally, this is what The Beatles’ song catalogue is valued at) would seem more fitting for this man’s breadth and body of work, which affected countless fans and subsequent musicians, including everyone from Joy Division to Madonna (at the very least, a willing prostitute for Warner). Shit, Bowie’s appearance for a gig in Manchester seemed to inspire every band in town that would end up forming in the late 70s/early 80s (well, his gig and the Sex Pistols’). Why, then, the sudden need to pawn off his genius to Warner Chappell Music? Did someone in the family just really want to live out the rest of their days on a private island as the likelihood of pandemic after pandemic becomes more plausible? It’s possible.
Among other sycophantic bullshit spouted by Warner Chappell’s CEO, whose last name, of all things, is Moot (as in: “Bowie being a true artist worth more that this is moot now”), he stated, “We are looking forward to tending his unparalleled body of songs with passion and care as we strive to build on the legacy of this most extraordinary human being.” Cue the suits rubbing their hands together behind the curtain and chanting phrases like “posthumous release” (this already includes Toy, also relinquished to Warner Chappell as part of the catalogue sale) and “franchising potential.”
Moot named the names he wants us to think responsible for the sale when he said, “I’d like to thank everyone involved with making this wonderful deal happen, including Bill Zysblat, Tom Cyrana, and the entire Bowie team at RZO, attorney Allen Grubman and firm, as well as our very own ‘Team Bowie’ made up of Warner Chappell colleagues Alice Aleksandrovich, Steve Butler, Michael LoBiondo and David Woirhaye.”
Yet we all know the people truly responsible: the ones who were supposed to guard and protect Bowie’s work with the utmost of care. Instead, they made a “pact.” Yes, the word “pact” is actually used in Moot’s statement. As in: Satanic, Faustian. Which the Bowie estate had no trouble entering into for the price of a song (if one will pardon the pun). So it is that Moot gushed, “This fantastic pact with the David Bowie estate opens up a universe of opportunities to take his extraordinary music into dynamic new places.” This is where one can imagine the hologram performances being lined up (Ashley O in Black Mirror-style). Moot added, “We were pleased that the estate felt that Warner Chappell has the knowledge, experience, and resources to take the reins and continue to promote a collection of this stature.” Well, yes, of course they were pleased. Especially to buy it so cheaply. Even motherfucking Bruce Springsteen got a higher price for his overtly inferior song catalogue.
As for Bowie, he was known for being very adamant about maintaining ownership and control over his work after enduring the ramifications of a bad management contract that led to him losing control of many early songs (a lot of which actually appear as re-recordings on Toy). Having learned his lesson, Bowie would negotiate better deals with RCA, EMI, Victory Music and Virgin Records over the course of subsequent decades. There was even a stint with indie label Rykodisc in support of Bowie’s CD reissues (which he promoted in 1990 with the Sound+Vision Tour).
Bowie was not a “money-crazed” man, as such ventures made evident. For, as his manager (and one of the aforementioned involved in the deal), Bill Zysblat, put it, “He wanted to control where and when his music was used—his pride in that was important. It was never about money. It was always about doing the newest thing, doing the coolest thing.” Well, there is certainly nothing about Warner Chappell that screams “newest” or “coolest,” so much as “quick payday for all!”
What’s more, as early as 2002, Bowie was already touting the demise of the artist “need” for record labels by saying, “I don’t even know why I would want to be on a label in a few years because I don’t think it’s going to work by labels and by distribution systems in the same way.’’
As the BBC assessed of the deal, “With the music industry becoming ever more complicated, with licensing deals over streaming, adverts, films, video games and online video to negotiate, the artists—or their estates and families—have a large and hassle-free deposit in the bank, and the complicated job of turning music into money is left to the experts.” But are these “experts” or merely shysters looking to take advantage of a “legacy artist” in an abyss of the current generation of musicians releasing a single at a time as opposed to an album? The bottom line is: Iman and Bowie’s children (a.k.a. “these children that [we] spit upon”) didn’t “need” to turn music into money. At least, not yet. In fact, selling it so soon after his death feels merely like a crass way to capitalize on what would have been his seventy-fifth birthday. But hey, what does a dead man (or a man on Mars) really care?
Some might say that the family going for such a low price only further proves how much they value the work being “in good hands” over trying to make an obscene profit. But what is obscene is that Bowie’s work could be valued at this amount. “Never play to the gallery,” Bowie once said. Alas, his heirs have made him do just that. He’ll be dancing all day and night, in fact, for the gallery that is Warner. And one can only cringe at what they might do to make a profit off him next. Especially when they [Allen Grubman] say things like, “We are sure they will cherish it and take care of it with the greatest level of dignity.” Yes, because corporations are so well-known for treating art with dignity. Though at least they seem to know the value of what they’ve gotten their hands on more than “Bowie’s estate” did.
