Best Business Commentary

The end of the label party

We’re in a “digital revolution” that’s overthrowing the CD and DVD, says John Gapper in the Financial Times (free registration). But the end of the “CD era” is also ending “a very good time” for creative types at music labels. With “less money to throw around” on the “creative” process of signing artists, the “suits” at the labels’ parent companies are tightening the screws. It’s about time. Yes, “creativity flourishes” in small groups, like labels, but the CD boom led to “inflated” budgets and self-indulgent habits that were “silly” then and are now “unsustainable.” Producers and “talent spotters” can look forward to book-editor salaries, and “creativity will have to be its own reward.”

Recession: truth or talk?

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“You can’t escape the R-word these days,” says Chris Farrell in BusinessWeek.com. Yet, disregarding “the old saw” about only seeing a recession “in the rearview mirror,” Wall Street and the financial press are acting more like backseat drivers “on the long drive to Grandma’s house,” asking “Are we there yet?” The media isn’t “causing the economy to stumble,” but still, with the “dark turn” the market talk has taken lately, it’s fair to ask, “Are we talking ourselves into recession?” There is a lot of bad news backing up this pessimistic economic “narrative,” but “a good number of economists” see the glass as “half full.” A few “upbeat tales” might give us a more accurate story.