I keep hearing bad rumors that Rhino/WB is going to be history in a few weeks...

Fee-Fei-Fo Hi-Fi?

 

If so, I hope they do a compilation of E-I-E-I-O.

 

how about "KranMars"??

 

D'oh! The Rhino folks never should've sold the rights to the name (they must've been overwhelmed by the dollar signs).

Maybe the Rhino people can find a new home at Shout! Factory.

 

Well I just spoke to someone over there and she has no doubt that WSM will still be intact - they are making more money than the other Warner music deptartments. She's not worried about her job. However, they had just hired a good number of people late last year and it's likely most of them will get the boot - unfortunately. Also some of the big bosses will be different. At least this is her take.

They still have reissues lined up, they will still be releasing DVD-As (or dual discs or whatever) with Time Warner and the next Elvis Costello reissues will still be massively delayed (because of Elvis himself). The latter could be May or July depending on the way the wind blows.

 

The beginning of the end is when WB bought Rhino! Not to say the Rhino reissues weren't good after WB took over but anytime a big guy buys the little one...well...it's never the same. Big corporations will not and can not put the time and energy in projects like Rhino did, it's not good business sense to them. I don't like to agree with that but that's reality.

 

What reissues? Haven't they cycled through the entire catalogue now?

Kwad

 

Uh.....NOPE! I am referring to everything AFTER 1989. That's when they became the premere reissue label in both sound AND material. I don't care about the stereo thing. The stereo fans reminice about the early days. I'm not one of them.

 

He was freelance, but he is contracted to WMS. Question is, will Bill Inglot stick around? If the former Rhino people do form a new company, or if one exists, will he follow them? Can they afford him? He has to be sitting pretty as the #1 ace engineer at that company! Maybe not...

 

Doesn't Feinblatt stand for the opposite in sound quality(i.e. bad)?

Matrix Records sorta has a nice ring to it...

Evan

 

No. They have not yet issued Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World, King of America, The Juliet Letters, or Kojak Variety.

 

How about WHEAT RECORDS: - "Rye? No, Wheat!"

 

In response to Gabe G's thread:Gabe ask your friend over at WSM if they still plan on issueing cd remasters of The Stooges,The Replacements,and The Pretenders.Both Gary Stewart and David McLees said they would be working on those catalogs next.I think Gary left-I sent him a letter saying how much I loved the "No Thanks"-Punk Box Set about two months ago and had it returned unopened with a stamp:Attempted Not Known on it.

 

Gary Stewart left Rhino in late 2002 despite his subsequent work on the punk box and the Costello reissues.

 

So true.

All the big corporations care about are numbers and what looks good on paper.

A company like the old Rhino really meant something - we care about what our customers want.

 

Well, there's RHINO...HIP-O...so...


How 'bout crossing an ELEPHANT with a RHINO???

Would that work???


ELEPH-INO...(Hell-If-I-Know)

(Bad pun intended!)

 

They could reissue naked Beatles' albums on their subsid "KranApple".

 

They could be creative and use the name of another animal or something that could be made into a cool mascot.

Tim

 

I didn't know that ... perhaps that was the beginning of the end (well, other than hooking up with WB in the first place).

 

Question is, just how can an upstart reissue label make a place in this business these days without having a niche market. The one that built Rhino almost no longer exists, and the majors have made damn sure that an inde reissue label will be hard to exist because they want all the profit. They won't really allow another Rhino, and they aren't interested in opening up their vaults, either. Varese Vintage survives, I guess, because their main parent label, Varese Sarbande puts out soundtracks and other first-tier projects. But, Varese has to put out the same stuff for the market and hope to slip ONE or TWO collectables in. Add that to when they say the the reissue market is drying up because people have everything they need. Gee, I think of all those dozens of masterings of "My Boyfriend's Back" or "Black Magic Woman"!

Someone mentioned that the companies are finding a new angle on reissues-mono mixes, but I really don't see that happening.

 

Great points, Grant! I agree that it's very difficult for a startup reissue label to get a foothold in today's market. As you said, at Varese, the Vintage projects can exist because of their soundtrack business. Sundazed now aggressively markets its vinyl line to support the CD business. It seems like if you don't have a niche to fall back on, you can't do it for long. And now with the majors coming up with their own internal Rhino variants (Hip-O, etc.), it seems like there's even less opportunity for an indie startup.

Gary

 

One note about Hip-O: they started out strong with compilations, but now concentrate on artist's comps, with almost no single-titles. And, they compress a lot of their stuff to death! I still shudder at how bad the Captain & Tennille Greatest Hits CD is. C'mon! How big is *their* market? They could have backed off the compressor a bit...no, a LOT!

Well, they have Hip-O Select now. I wonder how they will do.

Sundazed? They are great for vinyl now, but their output concentrates on the 60s.

Legacy is painfully slow...oh well...

 

Back in the infancy/growing times for CD's- I thought Rhino was the greatest label anyone could want. They had GREAT graphics and liner notes. They had expanded compilations of artists greatest hits. They had "theme" compilations(ala Nuggets/Frat Rock, etc). When I did my CD shopping in the mid to late 80's and early 90's- I usually headed for the 60's and 70's compilation section to see what Rhino put out new.

I loved the Fleetwoods greatest, the 3 CD set of Frankie Valli/4 Seasons, Turtles, Tommy James, Yardbirds, etc- they were great ground breaking releases. But I think we need to remember the times! Many of the labels that owned rights to this music was afraid to go deep into the catalogues for this stuff. It was a real niche market to the majors I think.

Unfortunately the rest of the world eventually caught up. The majors started releaseing their own comps. And they could, because by now most of their back catalogues were in place, and the buying public showed that most anything with the word "remastered" in it would sell.

We now have other "re-issue" labes such as Wounded Bird and Audio Fidelity, and there are others that I don't mean to slight by not mentioning. Audio Fidelity goes few steps better in the mastering(thanks Marshall and Steve) and does SACD, while Wounded Bird seems more like a "pass through".

Unfortunately I think what is needed for a BIG win like Rhino back then is for a new format(like SACD/DVD-A) to take off, and catch the majors off guard and not ready for multiple releases in a week much like the growing days of CD.

Chris

 

I think the future bodes well for small reissue labels like Audio Fidelity. I don't think SACD or DVD-A will ever become viable mass-market formats -- there's simply no consumer demand for "better than CD sound" -- and the majors may eventually abandon them. This could re-open the door for hi-rez licensing to small labels like Audio Fidelity, much as otherwise unattainable catalogs are available for vinyl licensing today: the Sundazed Bob Dylan LPs, for example.