Label wants out of Mariah Carey deal
Less than nine months after Mariah Carey signed a reported $80 million contract with Virgin Music, the label is trying to buy its way out of the deal, The Los Angeles Times reports. After more than a decade with her former label, Sony Music, the multi-platinum singer inked an astounding four-album contract in April with Virgin, part of the EMI Music conglomerate and home to acts such as Lenny Kravitz, Janet Jackson, and The Rolling Stones.
According to The Times, the label originally agreed to pay Carey a whopping $20 million advance for each album, plus give her $6 million to make music videos and $1.5 million to promote four singles. But the first - and, perhaps, only - album released under the deal seemed doomed even before it came out. Released in September, "Glitter" was the soundtrack to Carey's first starring movie role. But prior to its release, the singer suffered a very public "emotional breakdown", delaying the CD by three weeks and taking Carey out of the promotional juggernaut that would normally have accompanied both the album and the movie.
The film of the same name was then universally savaged by critics, and took in an embarrassingly paltry $2.4 million in its opening weekend. The soundtrack didn't fare much better. "Glitter" has sold a disappointing 2 million copies worldwide, including just 33,000 of those in Canada. By comparison, Carey's previous studio release, 1999's "Rainbow", sold 215,000 copies in Canada alone.
The Times pegs Virgin's total loss on "Glitter" at a whopping $10 million. The paper quotes "sources close to the talks" as saying the Carey deal has been so disastrous that recently installed EMI music chief Alain Levy - who came aboard after "Glitter" was released - is taking the highly unconventional step of trying to work out a multi-million-dollar lump-sum payment to Carey, rather than release the three remaining albums on the contract. (Jam!)
|
