Junior, who still wanted to be a player.
He had, like Morris, tried to make it as a songwriter. He had skipped college and gone straight into the music business, working pseudonymously for several years as “Junior Miles,” attempting to succeed without trading on the family name. Later, with his father’s backing, he had ventured into Hollywood, producing
The Border
, a 1982 Jack Nicholson flop. This unimpressive track record behind him,he had returned to the fold as a Seagram executive, where, at the age of 39, he was handed control of the empire.
Seagram’s most profitable asset by far was a stake in the chemical company DuPont. Junior dumped this to raise money to purchase controlling stakes in Universal Pictures and MCA Music Entertainment Group. The two companies were struggling: Universal was mired in the production of
Waterworld
, one of the most expensive and terrible movies in history, and MCA’s catalog was so old it was known as the “Music Cemetery of America.”
Junior wanted Morris to run a division of the latter, betting he could raise the dead. It was an offer Morris approached with some reluctance. He didn’t know Junior very well, and was aware that the industry had hung a target on this rich kid’s back. MCA was a last-place money-suck with 7 percent market share that was also sometimes called “the sixth of the Big Five.” Morris had several other offers on the table, as well as some ideas of his own. Nor was he hurting for money. Two days after his firing, he had sued Time Warner, trying to pull the rip cord on a golden parachute deal worth fifty million bucks. (Time Warner had countersued, accusing Morris of selling prerelease promotional CDs.)
But after a few meetings with Junior, he came around. With a lifetime of difficult contract negotiations behind him, Morris was a skilled dealmaker. Junior was not. Morris finagled points on profits, stock options at Seagram, and another golden parachute to complement the first.The initial credit line Junior offered for investing in artists was only $100 million, much less than what had been available at Warner, but Morris could see that, sitting on a limitless tap of booze money, there was a lot more where that came from. Best of all, Seagram was domiciled in Canada, where the lyrics of popular rap songs were not a pressing political issue.
Although Jimmy Iovine and Doug Morris were temporarily estranged as colleagues, they remained best friends and hoped to reunite. The betrayal of Fuchs had stung them both, and Iovine hadraised such a stink after Morris’ sacking that he was no longer permitted in the Time Warner building. Under normal circumstances, he too would have been fired, but Iovine didn’t actually work for Warner directly—he was an equity partner in a joint venture, and the only way to get rid of him was to sell him back his shares. This was an expensive proposition, as Interscope had diversified beyond rap, signing No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, and Marilyn Manson.
Together, the two came up with a plan. Iovine, the agitator, would make himself unbearable to Fuchs, and push extreme albums like
Dogg Food
and
Antichrist Superstar
that made the provocations of
The Chronic
seem boring by comparison. Morris, the charmer, would work on Bronfman, climbing his way up the corporate ladder and loosening up the purse strings of the Seagram board. Once both sides of the plan were accomplished, the two would reunite north of the border, outside the reach of grandstanding American presidential candidates.
They executed perfectly. In August 1995, Fuchs announced that Time Warner was parting ways with Interscope. The deal was an early warning sign of the growing dysfunction inside Warner. Whatever the cultural pressures, whatever the personality clashes, the move was indefensible for shareholders: what kind of idiot music label dropped Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Trent Reznor, and Gwen Stefani, all at the same time?
In November of that same
He had, like Morris, tried to make it as a songwriter. He had skipped college and gone straight into the music business, working pseudonymously for several years as “Junior Miles,” attempting to succeed without trading on the family name. Later, with his father’s backing, he had ventured into Hollywood, producing
The Border
, a 1982 Jack Nicholson flop. This unimpressive track record behind him,he had returned to the fold as a Seagram executive, where, at the age of 39, he was handed control of the empire.
Seagram’s most profitable asset by far was a stake in the chemical company DuPont. Junior dumped this to raise money to purchase controlling stakes in Universal Pictures and MCA Music Entertainment Group. The two companies were struggling: Universal was mired in the production of
Waterworld
, one of the most expensive and terrible movies in history, and MCA’s catalog was so old it was known as the “Music Cemetery of America.”
Junior wanted Morris to run a division of the latter, betting he could raise the dead. It was an offer Morris approached with some reluctance. He didn’t know Junior very well, and was aware that the industry had hung a target on this rich kid’s back. MCA was a last-place money-suck with 7 percent market share that was also sometimes called “the sixth of the Big Five.” Morris had several other offers on the table, as well as some ideas of his own. Nor was he hurting for money. Two days after his firing, he had sued Time Warner, trying to pull the rip cord on a golden parachute deal worth fifty million bucks. (Time Warner had countersued, accusing Morris of selling prerelease promotional CDs.)
But after a few meetings with Junior, he came around. With a lifetime of difficult contract negotiations behind him, Morris was a skilled dealmaker. Junior was not. Morris finagled points on profits, stock options at Seagram, and another golden parachute to complement the first.The initial credit line Junior offered for investing in artists was only $100 million, much less than what had been available at Warner, but Morris could see that, sitting on a limitless tap of booze money, there was a lot more where that came from. Best of all, Seagram was domiciled in Canada, where the lyrics of popular rap songs were not a pressing political issue.
Although Jimmy Iovine and Doug Morris were temporarily estranged as colleagues, they remained best friends and hoped to reunite. The betrayal of Fuchs had stung them both, and Iovine hadraised such a stink after Morris’ sacking that he was no longer permitted in the Time Warner building. Under normal circumstances, he too would have been fired, but Iovine didn’t actually work for Warner directly—he was an equity partner in a joint venture, and the only way to get rid of him was to sell him back his shares. This was an expensive proposition, as Interscope had diversified beyond rap, signing No Doubt, Nine Inch Nails, and Marilyn Manson.
Together, the two came up with a plan. Iovine, the agitator, would make himself unbearable to Fuchs, and push extreme albums like
Dogg Food
and
Antichrist Superstar
that made the provocations of
The Chronic
seem boring by comparison. Morris, the charmer, would work on Bronfman, climbing his way up the corporate ladder and loosening up the purse strings of the Seagram board. Once both sides of the plan were accomplished, the two would reunite north of the border, outside the reach of grandstanding American presidential candidates.
They executed perfectly. In August 1995, Fuchs announced that Time Warner was parting ways with Interscope. The deal was an early warning sign of the growing dysfunction inside Warner. Whatever the cultural pressures, whatever the personality clashes, the move was indefensible for shareholders: what kind of idiot music label dropped Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg, Trent Reznor, and Gwen Stefani, all at the same time?
In November of that same
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