Sharon Osbourne has slammed modern record labels and streaming platforms for “bastardising” the music of today’s artists.
With five decades in the business and a career managing her husband, metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, Sharon has seen the music industry evolve dramatically, and she’s less than impressed by where it’s ended up.
“There is no development currently at record labels,” the veteran manager proclaims in a new interview with Music Business UK. “They take everything.”
“Record labels developing (artists) doesn’t exist. A&R departments just go on the internet. That’s it,” Sharon says. “They’ll take your publishing, your merchandise and everything else, and all they do is press and distribute and stream you.”
Taking aim at the streaming economy, in particular, Osbourne continues, “Most of the record companies own the streaming anyway and all of this about, ‘Oh, I’ve got a billion streams, it’s amazing.’ Well, you’re getting less than a fucking penny for a stream. It’s absolutely bastardising an artist’s music.”
Which is why she urges artists, especially younger ones, to hold on to their publishing at all costs, explaining that giving it up too early can come back to haunt you financially.
“Never let your publishing go, until you get to the stage where you think you want to bail, and then you sell it all for a fortune. You look at where your songs could end up; you could get a couple of million each time your song is used in an advertisement.”
“Other people could cover your song and have a hit with a song that wasn’t a hit for you. It’s something which, now, I know a lot of artists, they go in, and they want deals, [and the] record companies want their publishing. It’s like, ‘Fuck you, no way.’”
Reflecting on how the role of the manager has changed over the years, Osbourne notes that true artist development – once a major part of management – is all but extinct.
“Managers in my day would support an artist so they didn’t have to support themselves, so they were able to write and hone their craft,” Sharon says. “You would literally put them in an apartment or a house, if it was a band, and you’d pay everything. You would invest your own money in an artist. That doesn’t happen today!”
She adds that performance skills, once honed through relentless gigging, have also taken a backseat in the age of social media where artists can gig “from their back garden” and “play to the dogs”.
“The years of trailing around the world, trying to break territories. It’s just instant now, which is fantastic for the artists,” she says, “but then you have to wait for the artist to develop their performance skills, because they didn’t have to tour and know how to work with an audience and all of that.”
“Even mic techniques, you get young kids today that don’t understand how to even work with a microphone. They just stand in front of it.”
Her sentiments echo those of other artists who’ve grown wary of the strategies of modern majors. Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows previously criticised modern record labels for offering little support for musicians beyond chasing online clout.
“When Avenged Sevenfold were on Warner Bros., they were trying to figure out how to create a viral TikTok moment,” he said. “What? I’m a fucking 42-year-old man, I’m not trying to figure out how to do a viral TikTok moment. I’m sorry. You’re going to take 24 cents on our dollar and that’s all you can do, come up with a fucking fake viral TikTok moment?”
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