Hitmaker

by Tommy Mottola

  I ran over to see Michael Jackson standing at a podium next to Al Sharpton at an organized rally to discuss racial inequality in the music business. Michael was launching an all-out attack on Sony and on me personally, calling me mean, a racist, and very devilish. Can you believe his desperation?

  I didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically, because it was really kind of comical, or to be violently offended and pissed off. But when it was over I sat there in shock and disbelief about what I had just seen.

  So I quickly picked up the phone and called Al Sharpton and asked him what the hell all of this bullshit was about. I had worked for years with Reverend Al—he’d come to see us every three months—and guys like Russell Simmons, supporting their initiatives and projects in the community, and we had great working relationships. I was totally confused why Al would stand next to Michael while Michael said those things.

  Reverend Al was profusely apologetic. “Tommy,” he said, “I had no idea that he was gonna do that. This conference was supposed to be about black artists and inequality. I had no idea that Michael was going to use it as his personal soapbox. I would never have been there if I knew what was going to happen.”

  It all became clear to me, and clearer still when Michael got on an open bus and had it driven to Sony headquarters carrying signs of me with devil’s horns on my head. Michael was trying to turn this into an escape hatch. He was singling me out in order to get a release from Sony. But it actually backfired on him. Did he really think he would embarrass Sony enough to walk away from approximately $50 million in debts or from our joint venture in the Beatles catalog? Michael even tried to bring Mariah into it, knowing that she had just left Sony. But quickly a spokesperson for Mariah defended me and pointed out that Mariah was very unhappy that Michael had dragged her into it. Meanwhile, Reverend Al and Russell Simmons were quoted in newspapers speaking out on my behalf, as well as Sony’s.

  “There are two things I know,” Simmons told the New York Post. “Tommy Mottola is not a racist, and, in black music especially, you don’t need $30 million to make an album successful. Michael Jackson’s album didn’t sell because of a lack of quality. If it’s a hit record, it’ll stick on its own.”

  I remained quiet at the time and took the high road, which as chairman was the road to take, because it made no sense to respond to such outrageous and ridiculous accusations. But here’s the bottom line on this: we were in the business of selling music. Sony had spent more than $30 million in recording costs and another $25 million in marketing costs, and put the full force of the company in motion to promote that album. But despite all of that, people just didn’t want to buy it.

  VOICES

  THALIA

  I can remember the moment very well, because I was having breakfast and the orange juice I was drinking kind of got stuck in my throat.

  Tommy and I were in Sag Harbor on a boat in the marina. It was the first day of vacation. I was sitting in front of the TV eating breakfast, and Tommy was reading the newspapers on the other side of the living room, having his coffee and making calls.

  All of a sudden I see Michael Jackson on TV holding a poster of Tommy with horns on his head. So I was swallowing the juice while I was trying to call Tommy to come over fast. It was a big shock. It just didn’t make any sense at all to me.

  Michael had been so nice to us in the past. He had come to a Christmas party that Tommy threw at the house—it was the first Christmas that Tommy and I were together. I had just flown in from Mexico with my mother, my sister, and her children and I didn’t know many of the people at the party. I only could recognize the very famous ones. At that time, I had no idea who Howard Stringer was. I was on one side of the room with my family, looking at an eight-meter Christmas tree that filled up the living room. Robert De Niro was in another corner and Michael Jackson was coming through the door.

  It was a little odd when Michael came in, because he came in with his entourage, they were smiley and quiet, and they went straight to a room that was my husband’s den and didn’t come out. But all my nephews and nieces had seen Michael come in and they were screaming, “Oh, my God! It’s Michael Jackson! Please, Tía, can we have a picture with him?”

  With all of that, I went to Michael and said, “I’m so sorry, would you please take a picture with my family?”

  He said, “Of course, of course.” And he couldn’t have been nicer.

  After that Tommy and I met him in Miami and he was very intimate and open with us about his childhood, and he and I shared stories about being kids and stars so young. The stories that he told were the kind that you only tell to people you’re very comfortable with.

  And now I’m on a boat looking at a TV and Michael’s holding up a picture of the guy I just married wearing devil’s horns? It’s hard to describe how I felt in that moment. I’m looking over at the most loving, caring man in the world, and I’m thinking, First, it’s Mariah saying he locked her in a gold cage. And now this! What is going on?

  Tommy immediately jumped on the phone to talk to his friends to try to understand and digest why Michael was doing this. What corner of Michael’s brain did this picture come out of, and what was the reason for it? I knew Tommy was going to be on the phone for a while. So I told him: “I’m going into town to see a friend. I’m on the cell if you need me.”

  When I got back he had calmed down and figured out everything.

  REVEREND AL SHARPTON

  I’ll never forget when Michael came to the National Action Network, and without warning attacked Tommy. Tommy called me right after the rally and said, “What was that all about?”

  And I could understand where he was coming from, because Tommy had done more than most record company executives and company presidents in his time to push the boundaries for artists, including Michael, who were black. Tommy had been extremely progressive on these issues. And on top of that, you always knew exactly where you were with Tommy. His yes was a yes. His no was a no. He never promised me something that he didn’t deliver.

  I told him, “Michael feels that Sony is not being fair to him, and he feels that everyone is trying to take the catalog from him.”

  Tommy said, “I will answer any question you want. But I cannot make numbers and sales that are not there. His own people are not giving him the right information.”

  Tommy laid out the whole picture and showed me a lot of things that Michael didn’t know: people on his side who were double-dipping, and people telling him things that weren’t there. I told Michael, and I told Johnnie Cochran, who was representing Michael.

  Tommy was genuinely hurt that Michael didn’t understand that Tommy was doing everything he could do for that album based on the business and the circumstances. He genuinely wanted Michael to understand where he was with it all. It was beyond an executive being attacked in the press. He wanted Michael to know that he really cared about him.

  CORY ROONEY

  I remember one time, Tommy had this amazing Christmas party at his house. This was a new house that he had just built, and I’m telling you, it was the most impressive party I had ever been to in my life.

  One of the reasons I say that is because every major superstar was there. You’ve got Robert De Niro and Julio Iglesias and Cameron Diaz and the New York City police commissioner. I can keep naming names forever. It was weird, ’cause this wasn’t the Oscars. This wasn’t the Grammys. This was Tommy’s Christmas party at his house.

  I have two crazy memories from that night that I’ll never forget. In walked Michael Jackson—and the room went silent, like it was in slow motion. Because Michael wasn’t big on showing up at people’s parties. But, you know, at that point in Michael’s life he kind of extended himself to Tommy.

  The second was that Howard Stringer was at this party. I looked over at him, and he was just kind of in his own world. Here’s a guy who is Tommy’s boss sitting off in the corner like he was a nobody. My wife noticed Howard Stringer like that, too. And I said to her, “For som
e reason, something just doesn’t feel right about this. I don’t think that Howard Stringer’s really enjoying this night.”

  I could feel it even then: This is not gonna be good. Somehow, some way, Howard Stringer’s gonna try to get revenge.

  While we were trying to support the release of Invincible, a much more powerful force of nature was being released and unleashed upon the public. I had gotten a delivery from Steve Jobs’s office. So I opened the box, and staring at me was a new and elegant device that could play music in a digital format and that had the potential to store thousands of songs. I wanted to hold the iPod and embrace it in that moment, in the same way that we all had embraced the Walkman. But I knew this was different. When I took it out of the box I felt like I was holding kryptonite in my hands—but certainly not being Superman, I’ll need a better metaphor. It was like looking at the Trojan horse.

  There was no denying that it was a brilliant device with revolutionary technology. But I understood full well that it was a full-fledged attack on the entire music industry as we knew it.

  I looked closer and closer at the device, and all I could think was: why couldn’t the new Sony Tokyo have had the vision to partner with Apple in the same way that Ohga had done when he was in full command and introduced the compact disc in partnership with Philips-Siemens? The new Sony Tokyo simply walked away from the discussions with Apple on the insistence that it had to be their proprietary device.

  At one point after the iPod was in full bloom, Steve Jobs even toyed with the idea of buying Sony or Universal Music. When he stepped back, he very wisely looked at the broad picture. He did not need to burden himself with the acquisition of a content provider when he could get the content for almost nothing—and everybody had to give it to him. The entire music industry tried to resist at first. But in the end, everyone folded and capitulated. Everyone thought, Better to get something for the content than nothing.

  There was a paradigm shift. Kids were now able to choose the singles they wanted instead of having to buy whole albums. In advertising parlance, the music industry went from a push environment to a pull environment. Kids were empowered, and their attitude was: You can’t tell me what to listen to. Here’s what I’m going to choose.

  It was totally clear to all of us, after the release of the iPod, that Sony Music needed to turn on a dime and make serious changes as quickly as possible. If there was any time to transform our company into more of a total entertainment company rather than sticking to selling CDs, it was right then and there. The business plan had already been devised and drawn up.

  Idei had a trip scheduled to New York. Perfect. I asked for a private meeting with him, and he arranged to meet with me. So we were one-on-one. It was one of the most important conversations I would ever have with him, so I got up from my chair, which was across from him, and sat down beside him on the sofa. I wanted to look him directly in the eyes. I began to explain how we could evolve our company into this total entertainment unit and participate in all revenue streams from the artists. We were already spending all the money on signing them, developing them, marketing them, and making them into huge superstars. We were creating their brand. Now it was time to be their partner in the ancillary businesses that we had helped develop. As I intensely explained this to him, he listened, and he nodded his head up and down as if he was saying yes, but he wasn’t saying yes. What he was saying was: Yes, I hear you. But looking into his eyes, I knew his nod was completely empty.

  That same week, Norio Ohga had also visited New York. He still held the title of chairman even though he had relinquished all of his power to Idei. So I scheduled a meeting and went to his office to try to get some answers. I wanted to find out what was going on with the new management that he had put in place.

  “Norio,” I said, “the way that you allowed us and supported us to build this company is not going to work anymore. I know that, and you know that. There is a technology revolution happening all around us. Of course, we need to protect and keep our core business strong, but we’ve got to evolve Sony Music into a new direction—because a decline in sales is inevitable.”

  Ohga picked up his head, and looked at me sadly. His eyes were like a fading light.

  “To be totally honest,” I said, “we’re all confused about our direction from the top. There is no real direction from the top.”

  The look on his face told me everything. Then the words came out of his mouth. “It was not the best choice,” he said, “but it was the only choice I had.”

  In Japan, developing or picking successors from internal executives was a very important part of their culture. But it did not mean that you would always end up with the best choice or the best manager. Can you possibly imagine what incredible talent would have been available out there in the world to take the top position at Sony Corp—the way it is for most normal corporations? But those were not the cards on the table. The culture demanded that the company choose from within.

  By 2002, downloading songs was already a part of pop culture. While all of this was going on, Stringer had positioned himself so close to Idei that he was awarded a new five-year contract. Talks of evolving our company had fallen upon deaf ears. And my antennae were up big-time.

  Illegal downloading was already taking its toll and profits were down. The volume of digital sales was nowhere near enough to offset the decline of physical sales—and the tidal wave was coming. At that time we were making huge internal plans to redefine the company and deal with any cutbacks that were necessary worldwide. There was more and more corporate governance coming from Tokyo and now from Stringer. Idei and Stringer were now aligned. Stringer had his new contract, and Idei was no longer introducing him as his wine steward. Stringer was now emboldened, and with all these seismic changes upon us, he now had the perfect opening.

  Grubman again reminded me that I wasn’t managing up to Stringer properly. And, for me, a person who so acutely pays attention to details like those, it might have seemed like a critical error. All of us knew we needed to be respectful of Stringer because he was the corporate boss, but we tried our best to keep the music company away from the dangerous wake of Sony corporate governance. It was hard to trust and respect these people who had absolutely no experience in managing an entertainment and electronics giant. They definitely were not Norio Ohga or Akio Morita.

  Grubman was handling my new contract negotiations with Stringer, and those discussions went on for about six months. But early one morning, in January 2003, Allen called me. I thought he was calling for our usual 7:30 a.m. chat. But he said he was with Mel Ilberman. Odd, for them to be together at that time. Allen said they both wanted to come over and see me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We’ll be right there,” Grubman said. When he said that, I knew it was going to be either very good or very bad.

  “Okay,” I said, looking into their eyes when they arrived. “Give me the bad news first.”

  Even though I still had a year and a half to go on my current contract, Mel said Stringer had decided not to renew. The change would be effective immediately.

  Allen quickly jumped in. “The good news is that Stringer has agreed to fund a new joint-venture music company for you. The funding would have an initial commitment of $60 million.”

  It was a lot to take in. So we talked it through for a while, as I tried to digest all of this. But I always believe in hearing news directly from the source, so I went to meet with Stringer in his office that afternoon.

  “This will be great for you,” Stringer said. “You will own your own company in a joint venture with us and operate independently of Sony. We will totally fund the company, and all marketing and distribution will be handled by the people you’ve hired and have worked with all these years.”

  As he was talking, my mind was clicking into fast-forward about the great possibilities that could come out of this.

  That daydream was broken when Stringer then made a joke, telling me that bas
ed on the remaining time in my contract, with bonus pools and et cetera, I would now get more money than he could make if he stayed with the company for the next ten years. Great line from the Toastmaster General. But certainly not the best choice of words to someone who had given every drop of blood and sweat to build this company over the last fifteen years into the global powerhouse that it had become, developing the biggest superstars in the industry who were recognizable by their first names alone.

  There was a sense of bittersweet relief as I left that meeting, but shortly after that I found out that Stringer’s plan was to hire his longtime crony, Andy Lack, who was being squeezed out of NBC by Bob Wright. Andy Lack. Another news guy with absolutely no experience operating a music company.

  As soon as Lack’s hiring was announced, Grubman and my close associates inside the company began to warn me. “I know we’re making this new deal with the company for you, but it may be foolish in the end,” Grubman said. “Andy Lack will never feel comfortable in the Sony building knowing how close you are to all the executives and the artists. He would feel undermined by your relationships, and it may become impossible for you to have success.”

  And how right he and everyone else was. It was a wise choice to not go forward—and Lack was beginning to put the brakes on the deal anyway. Simultaneously, a constant source of support and encouragement came to me daily from my longtime competitor and good friend Doug Morris, the chairman at Universal Music. Doug had gone through the same experience of what had just happened to me when he was at Atlantic Records, about to become chairman of the whole group of Warner music companies, when he was summoned to the corporate office to meet with the chairman and CEO, Michael Fuchs. Doug even called me that morning. He was excited, and I was excited for him. He walked into Fuchs’s office feeling like it was his day to be made. Instead, Michael Fuchs fired him on the spot for absolutely no reason. Here was one of the greatest record executives building that company up toward becoming the next world music power, and suddenly he walks into this guy’s office and just gets whacked. It’s amazing what ego and fear can provoke. All of us in the entire industry were in shock. But that’s how it goes sometimes. “Listen,” he told me every day, “if this new deal does not take shape then you and I will finally get a chance to work together. Tommy, I will make that same deal with you at Universal.”