October 17, 1998
BREAKING ACTS CAN MEAN GOING GLOBAL FIRST
By Dominic Pride
What's the shortest distance between two points? In school they said it was a straight line, but in today's music business, breaking into the next market can mean weaving a dizzy dance around the globe.
Take the example of Canada's Moffatts, whose attempt to re-enter the neighboring monolith of the U.S. market led them to sign in Germany, sell most of their records in Asia and Europe, and then, armed with 700,000 sales, try to crack fortress America.
Or Ireland's Corrs, the folk/rock foursome who had to go to America to find a deal. It was only after multi-platinum U.S., European, and Asian success that they could cross the Irish Sea to significant sales in the U.K.
Such stories are becoming more common, as major labels look to develop their talent on a global level but leave the costly and difficult British and American markets until they have a copper-bottomed success story to tell.
"I could not have taken the Moffatts to the U.S. without success in the Asian continent and Europe," says Helmut Fest, senior VP of artist acquisition for EMI Europe. Fest is the man who signed the teen sensations to EMI Electrola in Germany and someone who is gaining a reputation for "selling ice to Eskimos" by picking up acts from the U.S. and U.K. that domestic labels don't want, then reintroducing them to their own markets (see story, this page).
Executives say that other markets, particularly in Asia, are more accepting of melodic pop, whatever its origins, than the U.S. and U.K., which they say are increasingly concerned with servicing niche genres.
"The American market is similar to the British market in that it has very demanding views about what makes a hit," says Robert Williams of Williams-Bell and Associates, the Moffatts' management company. "There's a certain arrogance that tends to supersede all others in America."
Says Williams about U.S. labels, "They say, 'We know what's best for the audience' when they think they know, but they don't." Executives say that with competition for media attention being so high in those markets, they are looking to other places to gain a foothold. European, Asian, and, to some degree, Australian markets are all more accepting of straightforward pop, whereas in the U.S., says EMI Electrola's VP of international, Luthar Meinerzhagen, "they always think in categories. They don't know where to put an act like [the Moffatts]."
Escaping the narrow radio pigeonholing is one reason to try breaking in other markets. It's a route tried and tested by a host of bands, including Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, and 4 The Cause, the Chicago foursome now breaking in the U.K. after signing to BMG Ariola Hamburg.
Despite the current economic difficulties, Asia remains a market wide open for pop acts, although, says Joanne Bailey, VP of marketing for EMI Music Asia, "if you're coming with the assumption that you will make it, that's a bit presumptuous. You have to do the groundwork on a national level first."
Some acts are destined never to be appreciated either at home or in the crowded U.S. or U.K. markets. Yet, as these two case histories show, those countries do not have to be an act's first port of call on the route to worldwide success.
(Original text: Billboard, Vol. 110 Issue 42, p1)