Artists Sticking it to The Man

6 stories of artists that flipped double-birds to their record companies...

http://www.cracked.com/article_19647_the-6-most-elaborate-f-yous-from-musicians-to-industry.html

Has some NSFW words. You know, cussing & stuff. Enjoy!!

Quote :

When your fans look like this, labels are hesitant to approve any ideas that
don't involve spraying the recording studio down with Lysol.

Good stuff. I remember reading Reznor's comments back then and wondering how the next album would go down. Pretty well, it seems!!

I've seen this piece before. Love the Black Flag and Mike Oldfield stories.

I heard another good story on VH1 a while back about Neil Young, who was feuding with his record label (Geffen) in the early 80s. In retaliation he released two albums ("Trans" and "Everybody's Rockin'") that were totally off the wall and unlike any of his previous material ("Trans" was mainly synthesizer based, and "Everybody's Rockin'" was all covers of old Rockabilly songs), both of which sold so poorly that Geffen sued him for $3 million, claiming breach of contract since the records were "deliberately uncommercial and unrepresentative work." Hahaha!!

Nothing can top the story of John Fogerty getting sued by his former record company for plagerizing himself. That one always cracks me up.

Let us also not forget Prince changing his name to an un-pronouncable symbol to make it near impossible for his much-hated record label to do any sort of promotion.

S.D. wrote:

Let us also not forget Prince changing his name to an un-pronouncable symbol to make it near impossible for his much-hated record label to do any sort of promotion.

that man has been mocked so much for that name change...

Back in the mid-50's Miles Davis had signed a contract with Columbia Records for a large sum of money, but he was still under contract to Prestige at the time and couldn't release music for any other labels until he fulfilled his contract.

He owed Prestige 4 albums on his existing deal. So he booked a couple all-day studio sessions and recorded 4 albums worth of material in those 2 days. He handed the masters over to Prestige and was done with his deal. Prestige thought the contract would hold him for at least a year, instead they lost him in a matter of weeks.

All 4 of those albums are considered classics, despite just being his current touring band playing the same set they played at gigs. That first album for Columbia was also a huge success.

Keith, didn't are main man Kory Clark flip the musical bird to none other than Geffen Records on the Chill Pill release?

S.D. wrote:

Back in the mid-50's Miles Davis had signed a contract with Columbia Records for a large sum of money, but he was still under contract to Prestige at the time and couldn't release music for any other labels until he fulfilled his contract.

He owed Prestige 4 albums on his existing deal. So he booked a couple all-day studio sessions and recorded 4 albums worth of material in those 2 days. He handed the masters over to Prestige and was done with his deal. Prestige thought the contract would hold him for at least a year, instead they lost him in a matter of weeks.

All 4 of those albums are considered classics, despite just being his current touring band playing the same set they played at gigs. That first album for Columbia was also a huge success.

Are those the Steamin', Relaxin' and whatever(I can't remember the rest) set of albums????

chewie wrote:

Are those the Steamin', Relaxin' and whatever(I can't remember the rest) set of albums????

Yes, those Miles Davis Quintet albums (w/Coltrane, Garland, Chambers, Jones) were released as Cookin', Steamin', Workin' & Relaxin'.

The Columbia album referenced above was 'Round About Midnight".

martinsane wrote:

Keith, didn't are main man Kory Clark flip the musical bird to none other than Geffen Records on the Chill Pill release?

Yeah, now that you mention it, that record definitely qualifies. As the story goes, he didn't want to do another record of Warrior Soul's standard anthem-rock for Geffen and watch it go down the drain, so he made the CHILL PILL record weird and arty on purpose just to get the f*ck out of their contract.

In the liner notes of the ODDS & ENDS release he sez that at the time he was entertaining offers from several other major labels when his Geffen contract ended, so after he turned in CHILL PILL to Geffen, he had a whole 'nother "commercial" record written and ready to go but those other offers were withdrawn and he was left "holding the bag."

So in Kory's case he ended up sticking it to himself.

S.D. wrote:

So in Kory's case he ended up sticking it to himself.

Pretty much, yeah. The CHILL PILL album would've been commercial suicide even for a big-name band.

There's also a good story surrounding an old Marvin Gaye album called "Here, My Dear." As part of a divorce settlement, Marvin was supposed to give his ex-wife half of the proceeds from his next album release, so he did a whole record full of songs bashing her, then refused to promote it. Haha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here,_My_Dear

It was bomb when it was initially released but supposedly its reputation has grown among fans over time.

Fat Freddy wrote:

There's also a good story surrounding an old Marvin Gaye album called "Here, My Dear." As part of a divorce settlement, Marvin was supposed to give his ex-wife half of the proceeds from his next album release, so he did a whole record full of songs bashing her, then refused to promote it. Haha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here,_My_Dear

It was bomb when it was initially released but supposedly its reputation has grown among fans over time.

That's Number 2 on this list...

http://www.cracked.com/article_18446_6-albums-by-rock-legends-that-were-thinly-veiled-f2340k-yous.html

"Here, My Dear" is a classic, it's one of the darkest "pop" albums of all-time.

How about Johnny Cash. We have all seen the famous picture of him flipping the bird. Thing is the label told him no live albums from a prison. Wow...that album is considered a classic. Cash went against the label vocally several times.
that was also the whole idea behind "outlaw" country...some good ole long haired cocaine sniffing pot smoking boys telling Nashville labels to stick the greasy haired nudie suit crap. Waylon and willie are classics.

Conflict's live album Only Stupid Bastards Help EMI. Although it is more sticking it to New Model Army.

When I saw Ice - T live at a rap festival back in the 80's he went on a long rant imploring people to go steal his record and the Colors soundtrack since he wasn't getting paid anyway.