http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15697973

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/no ... sfeed=true

Just three majors left: Universal, Sony, and Warners.

Here's a little live music to play EMI out.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT6325bmcsQ[/youtube]

This might be a small piece of the overall pie, but in the classical music realm this means Universal now own pretty well all of the major labels: Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and now EMI. Massive boxsets will almost certainly ensue....

Yeah, I'm a classical consumer myself. Classical never makes any money, and I worry about having all the eggs in one basket like this. What the chief exec gives, the chief exec can take away again.

Let's hope there's a more enlightened approch to downloads of EMI stuff from now on.

At least Naxos is still turning an honest buck.

jaygray wrote:Yeah, I'm a classical consumer myself. Classical never makes any money, and I worry about having all the eggs in one basket like this. What the chief exec gives, the chief exec can take away again.

I was worried about that with the DGG/Philips/Decca merger, but it doesn't seem to have made much difference in terms of how the back catalogue has been handled. If anything, more things have been returning to print.

As far as new recordings go, it seems to me those have been declining in number over recent years, but if that's the case it may have nothing to do with mergers. Classical music is largely the province of the indies now, anyway: Naxos, as you mention, as well as Harmonia Mundi, Hyperion, Chandos, Linn, etc.

BTW, with the rich recording legacy that is EMI's, how is it that every news article on this story mentions fucking Coldplay?

I'll take your Beatles and raise you a decade.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTI0Omhsj1Q[/youtube]

Shrunk wrote:This might be a small piece of the overall pie, but in the classical music realm this means Universal now own pretty well all of the major labels: Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and now EMI. Massive boxsets will almost certainly ensue....

As will the plethora of first recital disks by moderately talented but pretty cellists and microphone friendly swarthy tenors singing show tunes.