Any thoughts?

Jamie sounds excellent to me but there's just a touch of "major label production" to him as though Lucian said "can you add a couple of Stevie Wonder ad libs please?".

Newton doesn't do much for me!

But the main question is - do the costs of campaigns get covered by the profits from sales?

Are we beyond the "they don't cover major label overheads" stage into the "they don't even cover their own campaign costs" yet?

Or am I being overly gloomy?

Maybe overtly gloomy, maybe a case of stamping the "label sound", which is maybe not a bad thing , if people involved care that much.
Appeasing the shareholders with the "label sound", could be a bad thing, with a crumbling monopoly.

I`d like to think it was neither, or both for the future of music.
But I suspect headless chickens.

As for the cost of campaigns, I can`t see any being covered currently personally.
We are looking at a time in which if Elvis were alive and went indie, a corporation could fall.

I suspect that the "new" model of breaking acts is just a reconstituted old model, not taking into account the absolute change in reward.

JK, I'm surprised someone of your supposed standing would be aware of Polydor having already spent a shit load of money trying to break Jamie as a pop/soul act a few years ago, which flopped.

KL I was aware of that but he does sound good. By the way what is my standing supposed to be?

Thinking about the above, I suppose the answer must be (to quote my one time backing singer Reg Dwight)... "I'm still..."

I haven't heard Jamie Scott, but I have no time at all for Newton Faulkner. I had a dream about going to one of his gigs the other night, and he was even rubbish in that!