>it makes one wonder just how many fabulous artists out there have been >squandered by the majors....
A lot. It happens in just about every genre, too. And sometimes it's smaller affiliates. Look at what happened to Felix The Housecat's album of last year - great effort, would have found wide appeal yet was very underground, but London didn't even release it in the UK - despite great reviews and press. It came out in Australia but Warner (who distributes London) here have little idea of how to market dance/electronicmusic/urban. Despite repeated requests for interviews (at our expense!!) we got no where. Also look at the Slum Village story. Here is one of the most promising new acts (and they are from Detroit) to come out of hip-hop for years with the potential to appeal to soul/R&B and hip-hop followers - D'Angelo guests - and Interscope lets them go after every man and his dog has bootlegged it. And radio has a lot to do with it, too. Urban music is only just breaking in Australia now due to a latent racism that held it back for years. Universal has tried for years and years to break Mary J Blige but radio will not support her because she is too them "too Black"- which is a hideous situation. Radio only reluctantly got behind Lauryn Hill - after months of Sony campiagns and then the Grammy coup. Hill was a hit but radio jumped on the bandwagon. This is why community radio is so important and why its supportbase is building in momentun because it responds to the community and young people (and young at heart) and ethnic people and working class demograhics and gay audiences, not monied young Anglo-Australian conservatives and suburban sheep who don't know that they are being programmed. People - artists, everyone - lay into the press, but it is often the press that exposes these situations and makes people aware of the music. Still, there are good individuals in the labels and at present a see a new generation of ace people coming up. Universal here really tried to break Innerzone Orchestra.
