Oasis have an album recorded and ready for release this summer, possibly as early as June. Yet when I ran into manager Marcus Russell, he cheerfully admitted he had no idea exactly how the band were going to put the album out. “We have three balls in the air and I’m juggling furiously,” he mysteriously claimed.

Actually its not hard to work out what the balls are. The group, who have their own label, Big Brother, are currently free of contractual obligations to any other company. This puts them in the same position as Radiohead last year: hugely popular artists with a guaranteed hit album open to offers. With EMI and Warners both struggling with internal problems and falling market share, there are only two major record companies with the clout for worldwide release, SonyBMG and market leaders Universal. So that’s two balls right there. Universal’s head honcho, Lucian Grainge, is known to covet Oasis and is rumoured to have offered them an advance in the region of five million pounds to join his label group. Oasis’s long term partners, SonyBMG, would probably meet any rival offer to keep their prize, and have the advantage of an established relationship and rights to the back catalogue.

The third ball is self releasing. Following the internet led success of Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’, with the group keeping a far larger percentage of the profits, this is an increasingly attractive option for any established band. Or brand, as rock groups may be known in the future. To rival major record companies for global market penetration, big name artists are increasingly signing deals with non music partners in marketing led arrangements of mutual benefit. Oasis hero Paul McCartney went with Starbucks, The Eagles went with Walmart (in America), Groove Armada recently signed with Bacardi. Madonna has joined forces for her next release with Live Nation, who also made a bid for Oasis, despite the live events company having (as yet) no music releasing infrastructure in place whatsoever. Mobile phone companies are tying up with bands to release music, car companies are known to be in the market for music partners, so it is fair to imagine that pretty much ever major commercial brand is currently investigating the possible benefits of branching into the music sector. If this is the advertising led model we have been hearing so much about, how long can it be before we see a band going on stage in the equivalent of Formula One leathers, every inch plastered with logos?

But would Liam Gallagher wear it? For all his mouthy belligerence, the Oasis frontman still holds romantically idealistic notions of what being in a rock and roll gang entails, and I suspect being a model for advertising is not part of that vision.

Unless, perhaps, its advertising cigarettes and alcohol.

As for the Radiohead option of giving away music online, according to Liam the next Oasis album will be free “over my dead body”.

I think Marcus might as well just drop that particular ball.

source: The Telegraph