Warner Bros.

Read this on Pitchfork:

Various Warner Bros. recording artists are huddling together, making small talk, and nervously biting their nails as the label, which recently let go more than 1,000 employees, has begun announcing which bands are to be cut from their roster. Many of the bands that will be released are those who existed on the east-coast-based Atlantic and Elektra labels, which are being consolidated as a part of a massive reorganization at Warner Bros. The reorganization comes as a result of a private group of investors, including former Universal mogul Edgar Bronfman, Jr., purchasing the label from Time Warner back in February. Several bands have already been let go, and it is estimated that nearly half of the 170-act roster will be given pink slips and be sent on their way.

One notable early casualty is Stereolab. According to the band's manager, Martin Pike, Stereolab was told that their "services are going to be dispensed with." Stereolab had been on Elektra since 1993, but apparently their consistent output and relatively steady popularity in the indie world wasn't enough to save them. Stereolab's most recent album, Margarine Eclipse, was issued earlier this year, "moving" only 40,000 "units," a very low output by major label standards.

The label is remaining fairly tight-lipped about who's staying and who's going, but Lyor Cohen, the label's U.S. chief executive, has outlined a vague definition of what will allow an act to remain on the roster, saying, "The tipping point of whether an artist remains is the company's passion to market and promote them. Everyone that remains we're going to be insanely passionate about." Which we must take to mean that you can expect to see more of The Darkness than you ever dreamed, and possibly a whole lot less of Built to Spill-- the justice, of course, being that these bands will likely make more money on indies anyway.

Luckily, a few of the indie bands at Warner Bros. and its various subsidiaries have a high standing with the label that is keeping them safe for the moment. Guster, for example, are currently in the option phase of their contract, which means that the label could've chosen to drop them if they wanted. In January, however, only six months after the release of Keep It Together, the option was picked up for another album, securing their place with the entertainment giant. According to Nettwerk Management spokesperson Dalton Sim, although Guster, like labelmates The Flaming Lips, are not selling millions of albums, they have "an active fanbase that continues to develop."

Sim commented that Guster has been very happy with the label, which is apparently realistic about who is and who isn't radio-hit material, stating, "I can only say that our experience with Warner/Reprise has been a very good one." He went on to comment, "If they don't think the band has a radio song, they take that money and spend it elsewhere." So it makes sense that cutting a band like Third Eye Blind-- who was a radio powerhouse in the past but stalled at the starting line with their most recent release-- would be an easy decision, as their popularity was rooted in big radio singles.

An interesting footnote is that everyone's favorite angry 45-year-olds, Metallica, seemingly strong-armed their way onto Warner Bros. for their next album. Like Stereolab, Metallica had been on Elektra, but chose to leave when the announcement was made that the label was being dissolved into Atlantic. The story goes that Metallica informed Bronfman and Cohen that they would not deliver the final record in their Elektra contract unless they were allowed to move seamlessly to Warner. On the surface, this seems like a sound business decision by Warner Bros., as Metallica has been a pretty sure bet financially for the last 15 years or so, but consider that Metallica's sales peaked with 1991's self-titled release, and have been on a steady decline ever since. Their most recent disaster, St. Anger, for example, has sold fewer copies than any album they've released since 1986.

As the cuts slowly leak out, here's a partial selection of the massive artist roster that, as members of the rather extended Warner family, could potentially find themselves homeless: Green Day, The Stratford 4, Dream Theater, Depeche Mode, New Order, Jewel, Morcheeba, Deftones, Built to Spill, The Donnas, Barenaked Ladies, Junior Senior, The Stills, Mandy Moore. Mandy Moore, people! That girl won't survive on the street!