BMG UK president Alistair Norbury speaks to Headliner about why artists are flocking to the music industry’s most unique label
On the label side, we very much enjoy this unique position of being our own entity with our own purpose. That works brilliantly when you are talking to our core artist community, which is iconic, established artists. We are seen as a home for artists who want to be respected, want creative control and total transparency in marketing budgets. And those artists are marketing BMG for us. The success of Rick Astley led to the success of Kylie, and the success of Kylie brought us Louis Tomlinson, who in turn attracted the interest of Rita Ora.
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The discussions and the chatter definitely help. We created that first with the songwriters, we now have it with the artists, and as a result we have it with the management community. The new curveball we didn’t anticipate is the fan. When we signed Louis Tomlinson we had no idea what world we were entering. It’s a different level of fan engagement. For the very first time there are fans outside the office expecting him to come in. For the first time our digital team saw their personal social media following rise stratospherically because they are being bombarded by the Louis fan base. But also, his fanbase are commending him on signing for BMG, so there is this other world of punters talking about BMG.