EMI BUYS MUTE, SO WHAT?

This past week, the UK-based multimedia corporation EMI announced their purchase of long time independent record label, Mute. While this might initially send shivers down spines of faithful Mute fans or indie label advocates, I feel the need to remind some of us about previous deals between Matador and Atlantic, or even Matador with the EMI-owned Capitol records. Back in the early-mid 1990s, Atlantic thought Matador had something really big with Pavement and Liz Phair, so they decided to go in on a deal with them to put out all of their records. When the Atlantic realized that they sank more money into releases which weren't bringing the bucks into Time Warner, they decided to end the relationship. Shortly thereafter, Capitol did the same thing. While EMI would love to have Moby, does anybody with half a brain think EMI will even want to release albums from Diamanda Galas, Throbbing Gristle or Non? Sure, the aging post-smack fiends Nick Cave and Depeche Mode do okay and all, but if EMI paid millions to have Virgin sever their ties with Mariah Carey, a deal like this won't last. If it does, get ready for Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget and Can records to go back out of print. According to reports, EMI will pay £23 million for Mute, plus up to £19 million of potential performance-related payments, over a period of four years. Couldn't they just have bought the rights to the music industry's biggest whore (anything for money Moby) and saved both the cash and the disgrace which will surely follow 18 months from now?