A little something I saw about the state of Warner Bros.
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R.E.M.: Is Warner Bros. Trying to Kill Them?

I was planning to write the following story anyway, and then I saw Dick Parsons' press release about the Warner Music Group. I think very highly of Parsons, but Warner is as eviscerated as a record label could be, and the latest episode is certainly emblematic of that.

R.E.M.'s album, Reveal, which was released in May, has now sold a measly 320,000 copies according to Soundscan. They are listing it at around No. 150 on their chart, which is a scandal, my friends, of the highest proportion. Not since Columbia Records conspired to kill off Soul Asylum a couple of years ago has the murder of a rock band remained such a secret. But it now it must be told.

Reveal is R.E.M.'s best work since their back-to-back hit albums Out of Time and Automatic for the People. The tracks "All the Way to Reno" and "I'll Take the Rain" would have been hits in years past when Warner had a marketing department or an idea of what to do with an album. But neither of these tracks was selected as the band's opening single. Instead, the very difficult "Imitation of Life" was the first indication for the public that R.E.M. had a new album. And they didn't "get" it.

Now a little history: R.E.M. signed an $80 million deal in 1995 with Warner, when the label was in executive flux and panic was rampant. Because Robert Morgado and Doug Morris had inadvertently blown up the label, Warner vet Mo Ostin and his faithfuls moved to the then brand-new DreamWorks label. The Warner people panicked but they had one trump card, the R.E.M. back catalog including hits like "Losing My Religion" and "Everybody Hurts." So they ponied up and R.E.M. took the dough.

What followed was a pair of middling albums, New Adventures in Hi-Fi (1996), and Up (1998). Neither was a big seller, and neither had a consensus hit. Michael Stipe, in the meantime, turned to producing movies like Being John Malkovich. Maybe the band was over.

Flash forward to 2001 and Reveal. No one could have expected such a good record. Lush and melodic, it's a certain Grammy nominee for Best Album. But where are the fans? Warner certainly doesn't know. They apparently never went out to look for them. And the result is that Reveal is basically dead, at least for the moment.

Reveal follows a lot of other Warner product down the tube: Paul Simon's You're the One and Eric Clapton's Reptile are the prime examples of albums Warner didn't know how to sell to the public. There is currently one and only one album on the Billboard/SoundScan Top 50 distributed on the Warner label, and that's by crunchy rock group Linkin Park. It sold around 2 million copies. Warner also has a couple of throwaway rock albums in the bottom 50 of the chart, and an R&B album at number 47, by Jaheim.

Just as distressing as the Warner label problem are the struggles of sister label Elektra. Sylvia Rhone, the only African-American woman running a major label — hell, one of the few women, period — is the constant source of rumors that she's about to lose her job. A favorite of past Warner head Doug Morris (who now runs MCA Universal Records), Rhone pinned a lot of her hopes to a new album by Missy Misdemeanor Elliott. But that album has been a so-so hit, and Elektra, like Warner, has lived on the sales of one grunge rock album — this by Staind — for the last several months.

According to Reuters, Warner Music Group's quarterly revenues for the second quarter, fell 11 percent to $895 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) slid 33 percent to $87 million.

Meanwhile, the question now is whether or not Grammy/NARAS voters will remember R.E.M. when the time comes next winter. Last winter, the NARAS voters resurrected another wilted Warners release, Steely Dan's Two Against Nature, which had nearly disappeared before the Grammys resurrected it.