Own Your Own Empire

On Hangin' In There and Taking Care of Bizness

‘The way to live as a true artist and the way to create is to swim out to where your feet just touch the bottom’. David Bowie

Today’s essay is my 50th edition of Loose Connections! That’s one essay every second weekend for a little over two years.

This is easily the longest consistently running creative project I have undertaken and I gotta say, I love the feelings of commitment and responsibility I have developed towards it. And I love the freedom its given me, to explore avenues, ideas and fascinations that once would have had me staring me out a window lost in reverie, and now I can share with all y’alls. I own it all and plan on self publishing a collection of my favourite Loose Connections essays as an actual, page turning book soon. Would you buy one? And please let me know if you have a favourite that should be in there.

I have covered a lot of esoteric ground on here so far - great disappearing acts, cultural guides, active wear, roadtripping, funeral songs, Hawaii, Jutta Hipp, Charo, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, subversive joys of books, sensible shoes, DIY rock promotion, Ronnie Spector, Linda Ronstadt, artist merch, New York Fucking City, isolation, inspiration, influence, imaginary friends, messed up algorithms, the origins of the bouffant, fairies and fakes, Sunset Strip, Betty Davis, mixtapes, chaos, loss, defiance, endurance, Elvis, the power of photography, transformation through song, connections, apathy, longing, delusions, Wendy Saddington, war songs, weepers and keepers, wedding songs, mental wandering, Prince, internal radios, rehearsals, creative manifestos, smilers, tambourine bruises, bleeding fingers and great waitresses in song.

Quite honestly, I am trying to build my own empire of words and music here. I have always been inspired by the idea of following your dreams, no matter how weird they may seem to others, and entrepreneurial music business moguls, those who managed to turn themselves into a thriving business by keeping a tight hold of their master tapes and publishing rights even when times were tough. I own all of my album masters and my song publishing. I haven’t quite mastered the thriving business part yet but as discussed in another essay here, I do have dogged persistence on my side and I’m not dead yet. I’m getting there.

Idea Factory

Of course Dolly Parton is a primo example of taking care of business, having famously held on to the rights to her songwriting catalogue, which Forbes has estimated is worth about $150 million. She has said “As a songwriter, I never cared about the money. I did make money, but I always just wanted my name on my songs.” With her many other business (and philanthropic) ventures including Dollywood, Netflix deals, writing books, a Broadway musical, a perfume, a dog clothing brand, wig and cosmetics brands - she is worth over $600 million. ‘I keep dreaming myself into a corner! I've learned you can't just say, 'Oh, my dream's come true and I'm walking out of here.' No, you've got to show you're grateful and show that you're not going to just leave it all in the hands of other people.’ Fun facts: she was also a secret producer of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and donated $1m for research towards the Moderna Covid vaccine. ‘All these years, the people have thought the joke’s been on me but the joke has been on the public … I know exactly what I’m doing and I can change it at any time.’

As well as being a creative powerhouse, Beyoncé is similarly driven to take care of her own business. In 2020, she stated ‘The entertainment business is still very sexist. It’s still very male-dominated. And as a woman, I did not see enough female role models given the opportunity to do what I knew I had to do, to run my label and management company, to direct my films and produce my tours. That meant ownership, owning my masters, owning my art, owning my future and writing my own story.’ She also has a clothing line and a philanthropy venture. She wanted to get things done herself, however she wanted them done.

In 1996, Prince told Rolling Stone ‘If you don’t own your masters, your master owns you.’ He was also skeptical of releasing music on the internet way way back, challenging ‘Tell me a musician who’s got rich off digital sales, Apple’s doing pretty good though, right?’, though he experimented with ways of selling his music direct online. He changed his name to a symbol to protest Warner’s ownership of his name and catalog and started his own NPG Records when his contract was finally terminated. ‘People think I’m a crazy fool for writing ‘slave’ on my face, but if I can’t do what I want to do, what am I? When you stop a man from dreaming, he becomes a slave.’

Prince lays it out here:

The recording industry was built on ownership of artist masters and publishing rights, often ‘in perpetuity’, or forever. History abounds with heartbreaking stories of artists and songwriters ripped off and destroyed by the contracts they signed, often as very young people and/or without legal advice. After a 50 year legal battle, John Fogerty finally holds the rights to his own songs after signing away his publishing as a teenager to Fantasy Records for the iconic Creedence Clearwater Revival catalogue, which includes classics like ‘Proud Mary’, ‘Fortunate Son’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising’. Since purchasing the majority stake he stated ‘I am finally reunited with my songs. I’m the dad of these songs. I created them. They never should have been taken away in the first place’. Taylor Swift made the incredible move of re-recording six of her albums after not being allowed to purchase her master tapes from the label she signed with as a teenager at the end of that contract. ‘For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and 'earn' one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. [...] I learned about Scooter Braun's purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I've received at his hands for years.’ Taylor Swift, Tumblr, June 30, 2019^. Her ‘Taylor’s version’ re-recordings have been so wildly successful and such a giant fuck you to the industry that other artists have been prompted to re-record their own masters and hugely successful young singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo was inspired to demand ownership of her masters from her label after observing what happened to Taylor. I’m sure she won’t be the last popstar to challenge those precedents. Taylor is changing the cultural landscape.

Rolling Stones were one of the first bands to make a concerted effort to own their own empire, launching Rolling Stones Records in 1970 to own and produce their masters and license their music, for both band and solo projects. But it was a path only available to those rich enough to pursue it then and remained a rarity until the 90s when being an independent artist starting becoming more popular.

These days ‘label services’ such as promotion and distribution are now widely available to those independents who can afford it, greatly diffusing the power of multinational record labels, although Universal Music Group still accounts for nearly a third of the global market. But owning your own music and carving your own path can reap large financial rewards, even if the numbers might appear smaller, because the artist is making most of the money, rather than eternally repaying advances or receiving miniscule percentages.

The Guardian have described Chance The Rapper as ‘rap music’s brightest polymath, autodidact and cottage industry all rolled into one’. Proudly completely independent, he advocates for persistence and putting the work in, responding on Twitter to an article that decried his success as unrealistic for most artists by saying ‘It’s only unrealistic because of the conditioning all artists are exposed to by different forms of media creating the narrative that you need to be discovered or put on in order to be successful. We wouldnt seek out deals if mfs knew there were other avenues. Also have some damn patience, all your favorite artists are locked up in deals and until they get out (and stay out) you wont see the realization of their full potential’.

Elvis Presley tried his best to control his own empire but too often had to acquiesce to his manager Colonel Tom or follow the binding contractual requirements of his label, recording and performing songs he didn’t like or in ways that felt inauthentic and embarrassing to him. He surrounded himself with ‘henchmen’ to at least simulate the feeling of control, giving them all gold necklaces to wear with the letters TCB, which stood for Taking Care of Business, with a lightning strike through the middle, which symbolised getting things done ‘in a flash’. Sadly, we can only dream about what Elvis could have accomplished if he could have truly followed his own dreams. Just look at the vision he showed in decorating Graceland - imagine if he could have really been let loose to create a musical world as imaginative and outrageous as this…

It really is possible to do it all yourself, to be across it all. Burlesque superstar Dita Von Teese has always produced, choreographed and designed her own shows, photoshoots and tours (together with creative partner Catherine D’Lish for the past two decades). Her shows promote body positivity and diversity and her distinctive artistic vision is across everything she creates. She does her own hair and makeup. She has also written bestselling books, created makeup, lingerie, jewellery, cardigan and gin collections.

The great and wondrous Bjork talks about ‘the matriach world’ that she inhabits, and credits Kate Bush with making - a world where self produced female artists envision and create exactly what they want to hear and see.

When artists take the reigns we are giving ourselves the best chance possible to succeed, innovate and thrive on our own terms, at our own pace, while honouring our own creative visions.

Here’s to TCB!

Lo x