Forum of music lovers

I wouldn't be hard-pressed at all. Is anyone playing British Invasion music (1963-1966) which is being done very well today? I don't think so.

It means no one is playing British Invasion-style music (Beatles, Stones, Dave Clark 5, Kinks) today and doing it well.

That doesn't sound remotely like something that was written and recorded between 1964 and 1966. It also is terribly slow and poorly sung.

Here's the Top 40 for August, 1965. NOTHING today could compare to this.

1 Beatles Help!
2 Sonny & Cher I Got You Babe
3 Animals We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
4 Fortunes You've Got Your Troubles
5 Byrds Mr Tambourine Man
6 Horst Jankowski Walk In The Black Forest
7 Jonathan King Everyone's Gone To The Moon
8 Dave Clark Five Catch Us If You Can
9 Marcello Minerbi Zorba's Dance
10 Ivy League Tossing And Turning
11 Byrds All I Really Want To Do
12 Joan Baez There But For Fortune
13 Billy Fury In Thoughts Of You
14 Marianne Faithfull Summer Nights
15 Yardbirds Heart Full Of Soul
16 Tom Jones With These Hands
17 Kinks See My Friend
18 Shadows Don't Make My Baby Blue
19 Rolling Stones (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
20 Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs Wooly Bully
21 Searchers He's Got No Love
22 Dusty Springfield In The Middle Of Nowhere
23 Tom Jones What's New Pussycat
24 Walker Brothers Make It Easy On Yourself
25 Hollies I'm Alive
26 Brenda Lee Too Many Rivers
27 Elvis Presley Crying In The Chapel
28 Bob Dylan Like A Rolling Stone
29 Jim Reeves This World Is Not My Home
30 Honeycombs That's The Way
31 Roy Orbison (Say) You're My Girl
32 Cher All I Really Want To Do
33 Peter & Gordon To Know You Is To Love You
34 Brian Poole & The Tremeloes I Want Candy
35 Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody
36 PJ Proby Let The Water Run Down
37 Gene Pitney Looking Through The Eyes Of Love
38 Lulu Leave A Little Love
39 Sonny Laugh At Me
40 Four Tops I Can't Help Myself

If I have to "look harder", it means it is not happening.

Here's the Top 40 for July 22, 1967. There are wall to wall better songs than anything being done today.

1. Windy The Association
2. Can't Take My Eyes Off of You Frankie Valli
3. Light My Fire The Doors
4. San Francisco Scott Mackenzie
5. Little Bit Of Soul The Music Explosion
6. I Was Made To Love Her Stevie Wonder
7. Up Up And Away Fifth Dimension
8. A Whiter Shade of Pale Procol Harum
9. C'mon Marianne The Four Seasons
10. Come On Down To My Boat Every Mother's Son
11. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy The Buckinghams
12. White Rabbit Jefferson Airplane
13. Don't Sleep in the Subway Petula Clark
14. Society's Child Janis Ian
15. Here We Go Again Ray Charles
16. Jackson Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood
17. I Take It Back Sandy Posey
18. Don't Go Out Into The Rain Herman's Hermits
19. Ain't No Mountain High Enough Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
20. Soulfinger Bar-Kays
21. Make Me Yours Bettye Swan
22. For Your Love Peaches and Herb
23. Carrie-Anne The Hollies
24. Step Out of Your Mind The American Breed
25. More Love Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
26. Silence is Golden The Tremoloes
27. There Goes My Everything Englebert Humperdinck
28. Let's Live For Today The Grass Roots
29. The Tracks of My Tears Johnny Rivers
30. I Like The Way Tommy James and The Shondells
31. A Girl Like You The Young Rascals
32. In The Chapel In The Moonlight Dean Martin
33. My Mammy The Happenings
34. The Happening Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass
35. Hypnotized Linda Jones
36. You Were On My Mind Crispian St. Peters
37. Let The Good Times Roll Bunny Sigler
38. Alfie Dionne Warwick
39. Your Unchanging Love Marvin Gaye
40. Love Me Tender Percy Sledge

I rate Windy higher than anything that is currently on the charts.

Sorry, but I don't like any music made after 1967.

I was born in 1963. "in my day" was 1973 to the present.

No, I love the British Invasion era of music (1963-1967). I also like almost everything recorded between those years.

No. Once the British Invasion starts in the US, I'm interested. Once psychedelia ends, I am off music.

I hate 70s radio and 70s music.

Sure, I also like Paul Revere & The Raiders up until 1967. Same with The Beach Boys and Motown.

Psychedelia reached its' sell-by date in December 1967.

Not tragic to me. I never get tired of mid-60s Beatles, Kinks, Who, Manfred Mann, Zombies, Stones, Dave Clark Five, Hollies, Yardbirds, etc. I strongly dislike everything else.

You're obtusely comparing apples to hand grenades. Well done.

Thanks for providing us with the low-information troll's perspective.

It did for me. Your mileage may vary, depending on how much of a low-information troll you are.

I have some 30 Beethoven Symphonies cycles so I am very well covered. I don't need to stream any Beethoven Symphonies worth listening to that I do not have ...

Is there a clause in the contracts you sign saying that the label can cancel it at anytime after they sign it? Especially if all monies have been paid. Doesn’t seem right even if they hold most/all the cards. Contracts are signed by both parties for a reason. If the artist doesn’t like it, boo hoo bitch, it’s a signed and done deal. Get over it. I don’t understand how this can happen. If I buy a vehicle and sign a contract, I can’t go oh wait…never mind. Doesn’t work that way.

The way it has worked is I sign the contract, wait to receive an invoice to submit payment of the advance, then they are supposed to send me the final signed contract. The time they do this ranges from days to months and I've had titles manufactured and in hand by the time the fully executed contract is in place. It's rare the fully signed contract is in hand before manufacturing has begun, and it's more of a technicality before the release date. In this case, I waited until the invoice was received and the payment sent before I made the larger release announcement with the expectation the final contract would be in hand before the actual release. Either way, the fully signed agreement makes no difference, which I know from experience. They can choose to pull the license prior to release, and as I know from another third-party label, after the release is out. Sure, you can choose to try to fight it but you're opening a can of worms with licensing labels and/or artists that will likely just escalate beyond what a third-party label can or will afford to pay. In most cases, despite the injustice of it, it's best to scream a bunch of obscenities, have a good cry, or just sit quietly and seethe than try to push back.

The situation is I told Universal if they cannot provide any new CD clearances promptly to help compensate for this latest F***ed up situation, cancel everything and I'm done. I don't expect they give a damn either way and the PTSD of this situation would cause me to be worried with ANY possible future release announcement, being this is the second time in two years this has happened to me. Even if the artist doesn't have a contractual clause where they can veto a release, it seems more and more that the labels are just giving in and screwing over their relationships with third parties. I've sent a message to the CD manufacturer to see if they can stop production if it's not too late, and have also contacted the manufacturers associated with the recently mentioned represses of two Boingo LPs and asked them to put things on hold until I decide what I want to do. Great way to start the weekend!

This leaves such a sour taste in my mouth. Definitely will make sure that I never spend a cent on the band just to make myself feel better.

Thanks for quick reply, Scott. Like everyone else, I’m super sorry this keeps happening. This is a real bummer and I wish I could fire universal employees at will and replace them with who I see fit, especially to help you with all you would liked to get released. I have all your cd releases and will buy any you further release. I love my RR collection! Have a relaxing weekend Sir. Yeah right lol.

So if S****** had not put up on his website about this coming cd re issue in August. The artist would not have been aware and this could have been released without issue, giving us die hard fans a shot at getting this. If Scott would have advertised this cd on his website a couple weeks after the cd was in hand and for sale, we could have had a shot at this………. Note to self moment. No blame on you, Scott. It may sound underhanded, but with all the shady dealings you’ve had in the past…..maybe time for some shade of Scott’s in the future.

The enthusiasm that the announcement about Frenzy on Facebook yesterday had exceeded my expectations. I've since taken that announcement down and am feeling like I'm in a nightmare. It does feel very dreamlike because not only is all of my work being scrapped again, the label's future is in greater question than ever before. Last time, it was because I wasn't getting any new CD clearances, and the feeling of betrayal when after a year of inquiries I found U had stopped processing all of my CD reissue requests simply to exploit the higher license fees of vinyl, and deliberately ignored my inquiries on the subject until I said no CDs, no more clearances needed. So, their first attempt, six months later, at a CD clearance and this is the outcome. Great work! Relations are extremely poor, no question, and I didn't hold back when I responded today.

I'm fine with retirement. There is no desperate need to keep this going. Many of you have read about various licensing and manufacturing issues over the years, especially the last year or two. These are not common in the amounts I have encountered. I've had many people, even today, tell me I've put up with far more than they ever could. It has felt doomed for a long time, today is by far the worst. It's not about wanting to carry on, it's about the required dealings with the people necessary and all of their shortcomings that directly affect me. But it doesn't stop there because a snag can come at any point before and after a release is out.

There have been people who have mentioned on Facebook that the band, namely Eddie Rayner, have plans to revisit/remix/remaster(brickwall) the Enz catalog again in the coming years. That should have no impact on my planned reissues because Universal hold USA rights and Warner hold Aussie/New Zealand rights, which is what Rayner would be working through. After reading in another thread that Rayner had already taken issue with my reissue after he found out about it after my announcement, I expected that was it because it didn't appear their U contract had an artist approval clause. Well, I guess that didn't matter and maybe it's just a pointless effort on U's part at artist relations to shaft me for a band they've done nothing with since a 1987 Best Of compilation, which I reissued without issue two years ago. Chalk it up to another of their bad decisions.

I am so incredibly sorry to hear about this, Scott. Like many, I was really looking forward to these Split Enz releases, but even more than that, I was looking forward to the prospect of your amazing label's continued existence. I truly hope this isn't the end, but I can totally understand your decision to pull the plug.

Maybe it goes without saying, but I have zero interest in whatever brickwalled band-approved reissues do end up being released. I have all those Split Enz albums on vinyl, and I was only interested in getting them on CD because you would be doing them. But since that's now not in the cards, they won't be getting a dime from me. Not only is the band missing out, but so are their fans, which is truly frustrating.

Of course very disappointing as I was really looking forward to Frenzy as so many others were.

It’s really unfortunate that a lot of these New Wave bands aren’t given the reissue care and attention that a lot of the classic rock bands have been given. I felt this label was a way to get a lot of that great music out there in a quality product, but it’s sad to see that the companies, or even the bands themselves, don’t seem to care. The label should have a been a hit with fans of this era snapping up stuff that was never released on CD or was released with very subpar mastering. The Split Enz catalog stood to gain a lot in terms of mastering and the Frenzy release had me really excited. Now it’s just another dashed hope and more than ever I’ll just have to live with my vinyl (not the worst thing), but…oh, what could’ve been…

This all makes me want to punch somebody in the head.
Selfishly I had envisioned a top notch series of releases, the precedent having been set by Oingo Boingo.
Successful and lucrative for everyone including the band.
How horribly shortsighted

I've drafted an email that will go to U on Monday, and it's closing the door while further calling them out. In April, I specifically asked the head of licensing about the Enz catalog. The response I got was "I’m not aware of any issue with Split Enz." I don't think this is a case at all of an artist approval requirement in the contract, it's U pandering to an artist whose catalog they've not touched in many decades at the expense of our relationship. I mean, if you could have seen the "thanks for understanding" BS email I got about the cancellation, it would make you cringe at the dismissive 'too bad, so sad' tone. At the very least, Frenzy should have been able to move forward because it's done, paid for, and not going to be the same version the band will reissue many years down the road.

Really sorry to hear about all this. I know things were ropey to begin with, but this is just beyond the pale.

The fact that you're just out the money after being a reliable cash stream for U over a period of years is peak stupidity.

It was a pressing of 1000. I'm still waiting for the final refund quote to determine if I will have it finished for my last bit of physical media for my label.

This morning, I did send the 5 people on the original license cancellation notice I received on Friday a direct response telling them all of my outstanding requests are to be cancelled and the label is done. I will send an official announcement to my distribution list and post on social media likely within the next day. Yes, this is really it this time. The fact that they think they can have clients spend thousands of dollars and cancel projects at the last minute is not acceptable, I don't care about what ever God complex they've developed.

I did chuckle when I got a out-of-office message from FCP, who has apparently been out of the office and will not be returning until January 2025! No wonder why they were grooming an assistant, it's a replacement for yet another lofty leave of absence these people get. It's like I've said before, the fact that they get about 1/3 of the year off for vacation and holidays I'm sure is a big contributing factor to their alleged work backup. No Sympathy, No Violins.