Monti Lüftner, the mastermind behind Ariola (in the 60s) and BMG (in the 70s & 80s), was killed in an accident with a truck last thursday.

It took three men (Thomas Stein, Thomas Middelhoff & Rolf Schmidt-Holtz) to destroy the music empire Monti had build.

Monti was brilliant (though a bit overweight, if I remember correctly) - a legend in the global music industry and one of our greatest entrepreneurs.

Sad news.

Interesting troika to lay the blame for the decline and fall of BMG. Here's another trio-Strauss Zelnik,Michael Dornemann and Rudi Gassner. Of course in the end , its market forces and poor A&R ; Twas ever so,mein colleagen.

Yes, I should have mentioned Zelnick & Dorneman (for the Zomba-Deal alone).

Poor A&R: Ariola/BMG was always not much more than a competent distribution/marketing company.

Because Ariola had no success with its own acts, Lüftner bought (not "discovered") Peter Alexander (a big star for at least 10 years on Polydor) and Udo Jürgens (who had won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1966 ).

At around the same time (mid-sixties), Ariola out-sourced A&R to (dependent) producers like Hans R. Beierlein (Montana) und Peter Meisel (Hansa). Ralph Siegel, Frank Fahrian and others followed later.