It was 50 years ago that The Beatles auditioned for Decca, on Jan. 1, 1962, and were famously rejected, being told that “guitar groups are on the way out” and that the Liverpool quartet had “no future in show business.” Instead of signing the band who would go on to be the most famous and best-selling musical group of all time, Decca signed a different band who auditioned on that same day who were local to London, thus saving on their travel expenses. But The Tremeloes were never heard of again, and the “Decca audition” went on to become one of the most legendary examples of record company stupidity. But Decca wasn’t the only label that passed on The Beatles—Oriole, Philips, Pye, Columbia and EMI all passed on them before they were signed by EMI subsidiary Parlophone.
Perhaps being rejected by a major label, then being signed by a smaller subsidiary of the same label sounds like a familiar story with an echo in the 21st century. It may, especially to those familiar with the story of Chicago band Wilco. The group were sent packing by Reprise when the label heads at the time didn’t like what they heard on the record they had just completed, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Wilco negotiated a buy-out deal that included their retention of the master tapes, which they streamed for free on their website until another label, Nonesuch, signed them and released the album. The parent company of both Reprise and Nonesuch? Warner Music Group—meaning, essentially, that the same label had paid twice for the same record. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, selling almost 600,000 copies, their best-selling album at that point. It also won the hearts of many music critics, topping The Village Voice’s 2002 Pazz & Jop’s poll, and was included in Q Magazine’s 100 greatest albums of all time. This story was recorded in the excellent Sam Jones documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and the subsequent book penned by Chicago Tribune rock critic Greg Kot. Needless to say, this turn of events made the leadership of Reprise’s concern that they didn’t “hear a single” on the record seem like a foolish position, in retrospect, and it had an odd consequence.
To negate the “egg on their face” and the backlash generated by their handling of Wilco, Reprise started to spend more money, time and attention on other “artistic alternative” bands such as The Flaming Lips. Lead Lip Wayne Coyne was quoted as saying:
“We are benefiting from the label’s regret over Wilco. We are living in the golden age of that being such a public mistake. The people at Warner said, ‘We’ll never have a band like Wilco feel we don’t believe in them again.’ They’d tell me that it would never happen to us. And what a great day for me!”
Of course, early in 2011, Wilco announced that they were parting ways with Nonesuch and would release their next record, The Whole Love on their own label. But in the short term, the Reprise people sure seem to have made a serious mistake and mishandled the circumstances from beginning to end. (At the time, Time Warner had just merged with America Online and Warner Music Group had just fired about 600 employees, including Reprise head Howie Klein, so these decisions—including rejecting Yankee Hotel Foxtrot—were made by temporary leadership who had been thrust into these positions and were doing all they could to hold down short-term costs and maximize immediate profits.)
Q-Tip’s record label, Arista, passed on his album Kamaal/The Abstract after it was scheduled for a 2002 release and had already been reviewed by Rolling Stone. A year later, when Andre 3000 did the same kind of jazz ‘n’ fusion thing for his part of Outkast’s Speakerboxx/The Love Below, it was a hit (“Hey Ya” still sounds overplayed, and that was nine years ago.), and it set the stage for rappers to let their freak flag fly without fear of losing commercial appeal. Kamaal/The Abstract eventually leaked onto the Internet and after its official release in 2009, the album debuted at No. 77 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 6,000 copies in its first week. It also peaked at No. 32 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, at No. 12 on the Independent Albums, and at No. 17 on the Top Rap Albums chart, also receiving positive reviews from most music critics.
Def Jam’s head of A&R, Joshua Sarubin, was wowed by a New York City solo artist’s “unusual and provocative” performance and convinced label head L.A. Reid (now a judge on “American Idol” copycat show “The X Factor”) to sign her in September 2006, but she was dropped after three months. The world would have to wait until 2008 to hear the debut of Lady Gaga, now a multiplatinum artist for Interscope Records.
Labels aren’t the only boogeymen in music of course—even veteran pop stars have been known to pass up opportunities. Joni Mitchell could have played Woodstock, but a manager told her it would be more advantageous to her to appear on “The Dick Cavett Show.” She wrote the song “Woodstock” while watching the TV coverage on the news in her hotel room, and she wasn’t the only one who missed that muddy field of drugs and nudity: other groups that could have been included were the aforementioned Beatles, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Procul Harum and the Moody Blues.
Mary J. Blige or Britney Spears could have recorded “Umbrella,” but both passed on it, and Rihanna used it to shower herself with gold records. Decades earlier, The Marvelettes passed on “Where Did Our Love Go” by Holland-Dozier-Holland, and instead, the song kicked off The Supremes’ record-setting string of No. 1 and Top 10 hits at the time. Stevie Wonder wrote “Superstition” for Jeff Beck during an abortive Motown session in 1970 but wound up recording it himself.
Lux Interior of The Cramps was almost cast in The Crow, as the character that was to shoot Brandon Lee, but he thought that the part was poorly written (too many fart jokes, he allegedly claimed) and declined the part. Before Johnny Rotten got the part, candidates for the lead singer of The Sex Pistols included Pistol Steve Jones, Midge Ure, Johnny Thunders and Sylvain Sylvain of The New York Dolls, Richard Hell of Television and future Pistol Sid Vicious. In the winter of 1978, Richard Branson flew Mark Mothersbaugh and Bob Casale down to Jamaica, then revealed to them that Johnny Rotten was in the next room, and wanted to be the new lead singer of their band, Devo. Needless to say, that didn’t happen either, but the history of post-punk would have taken an interesting twist.
Sometimes the worst decision is not passing up a particular pony, but picking the wrong one: Van Halen hired former Extreme singer Gary Cherone to be their lead singer after David Lee Roth left (apparently those fences have recently been mended yet again after taking a two-step in the interim with the red rocker Sammy Hagar). Iron Maiden made a similar misstep after lead singer Bruce Dickinson left and lived to regret it.
But hindsight is 20/20, and it’s as easy as a trip through Bakers Square on the day after Thanksgiving to play Monday morning quarterback. Even those supreme arbiters of musical knowledge, rock music critics, sometimes miss the boat. Nirvana’s Nevermind enjoyed renewed interest of the 20th anniversary of its release last fall, and aside from making many members of Generation-X feel old, it prompted a re-evaluation of its initial critical reception. None other than Rolling Stone (and critic Ira Robbins, who is usually on the money) initially failed to recognize the seismic impact the record would have upon its listenership, writing in a three-out-of-five-star review that, “If Nirvana isn’t onto anything altogether new, Nevermind does possess the songs, character and confident spirit to be much more than a reformulation of college radio’s high-octane hits.” Of course, in Rolling Stone’s patented revisionism, that same review of the original release from November 1991 now gives the same record four out of five stars.
Whether it’s the Recording Industry Association of America suing a housewife for $2.1 million for sharing 24 songs online or filing suit against an 83-year-old dead grandmother, or the next panel of “American Idol” or “X Factor” judges passing over the most talented of their talent pool in favor of what the lowest common denominator wants, it’s clear that mistakes will continue to be made, and until everyone doubles down on Warhol’s prophecy, and we all get our own 30 minute reality show, mistakes will continue to be made. And even at that point, who is to say? Mistakes are human nature, and we all make them—even the hitmakers.
