It’s a good thing that there’s a German word for pleasure in the misfortune of others: schadenfreude.
Just before the Grammy Awards, The New York Times published an investigation that revealed that BMG signed, then let go before it released any music, the French rapper Freeze Corleone, who had previously been dropped by Universal Music Group for lyrics in previous music in which he compared himself to Hitler. Then, the following week, on Feb. 9, the German newsweekly Der Spiegel reported that Universal Music had made a distribution deal with the band Weimar, at least some of whose members had extreme right-wing affiliations in their past — and which the label immediately dropped when this came to its attention. (The band has since issued a statement renouncing extremism, xenophobia and racism, and two of the members admitted to a “right-wing-motivated past” but said they had since changed their ways.)
The schadenfreude, directed toward both labels, came from competitors and may have been heightened by BMG’s penchant for criticizing the majors for a business model it deems outmoded. “Look what they did,” some said. “Well, I mean, sure — OK — that last bad thing we did wasn’t exactly good but wasn’t much of a story. But this? This is a story!”
Both companies can claim some moral high ground: BMG’s French operation released Freeze from his one-album contract as soon as Dominique Casimir, who is now the company’s chief content officer, asked for additional checks into the rapper’s history. (BMG’s deal with Freeze gave it the right to reject the album if it included antisemitic lyrics, which it didn’t.) Universal, which wasn’t aware of Weimar’s members’ backgrounds — the musician that Der Spiegel describes as the worst of the band’s members did not have his name on the recording contract and wasn’t in the group as far as the label knew — dropped the act when it discovered its past connections to the far-right.
But I don’t think either has much to be proud of, either. BMG knew Freeze had been dropped by Universal and signed him anyway; a memo sent by an executive in the label’s French office said the rapper “faced controversy,” which is offensive in its understatement. Less is known about the Weimar situation — Universal said in a statement that despite efforts to vet the act, “we were unaware of the band members’ background” — but a group named after the inter-war German government would seem to merit more intense scrutiny. (To be fair, the group’s lyrics, which seem so alarming given the members’ backgrounds, seem melodramatic but cliché taken out of context.) Most people in the music business seem to have an opinion on which of these incidents was worse, but there are no bragging rights for having the industry’s second-worst antisemitic issue of 2023 — especially when it’s only February.
My own opinion on all of this is complicated by the fact that I’m Jewish, and I happen to live in Berlin, not far from the offices of these companies. And I’ve already disappointed some industry acquaintances looking for an easy villain by pointing out that the people involved — Casimir directly and BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch and Universal Music Central Europe chairman and CEO Frank Briegmann far less directly — are decent people who try hard to do the right thing and in both of these cases did so as soon as they fully understood the situation. That’s important.
However unsatisfying it might seem, the villain here may be a gold-rush for streaming market share and an industrywide shift toward single-album deals and distribution agreements. Until a decade ago, most artists signed long-term recording contracts and worked closely with A&R executives. These days, some artists simply hand over finished music — which sounds really cool until something like this happens — and the economics of streaming incentivize grabbing market share now and asking questions later.
That’s an explanation, though — not an excuse. And while both BMG and UMG have admitted they messed up, neither has publicly discussed any kind of plan to avoid making the same kind of mistake in the future. Both companies should do so — and soon. That’s especially important for BMG, which is owned by Bertelsmann, a German media conglomerate that printed books for the Nazi army during World War II. Everyone who ran Bertelsmann back then is dead, and everyone I know who works there now is very nice, but the company’s past gives it a responsibility to do better.
Both BMG and UMG want to put these controversies, and these artists, behind them — but they can’t avoid taking responsibility. (This can be complicated: UMG is still distributing the Freeze album it put out before it dropped the rapper, presumably because he has an ongoing defamation lawsuit against the label. “Universal Music France (UMF) does not work with Freeze Corleone and has not done so since September 2020 when, after one week, we ended our relationship with him with immediate effect,” according to a statement from the company. “Because this is the subject of a pending legal matter, we are unable to comment further, other than to say that we deeply regret that we were unaware of the situation prior to starting collaboration with Freeze Corleone.”) In 2018, when BMG faced another controversy about rappers with antisemitic lyrics, it donated 100,000 euros to a campaign against antisemitism, which is a significant gesture — but situations like this can’t be solved with an expensive swear jar. Companies need to think about how to keep this kind of thing from happening again.
At a bare minimum, record companies need to spend a few hours learning about artists they sign or distribute. (Going out to lunch or dinner: Not scalable, usually inefficient, often worth the time.) If they release controversial music — which may well be the right move when it comes to music that’s political, rather than racist or antisemitic — they should put their brand names on it. (BMG planned to release Freeze’s album without its logo, which the label has done for other acts, for reasons that have nothing to do with controversy.) If you’re not proud of it — not necessarily as politics but at least as art and expression — don’t put it out.
And if you take antisemitism and fascism seriously, don’t just drop acts that cross the line. Tell Spotify that Joe Rogan went too far when he said on his podcast that “the idea that Jewish people are not into money” is “like saying Italians aren’t into pizza.” (I like both, as do most people I know, but crudeness aside, no one has threatened Italians with genocide for their alleged food preferences.) Try to get Roger Waters to criticize Israel in ways that don’t play into antisemitic conspiracy theories. Ask Jay Electronica why he started the 2020 album A Written Testimony by sampling the notoriously antisemitic Louis Farrakhan asking, “Who are the real children of Israel?”
These won’t be easy conversations, but it’s time to have them. Then, maybe, we can try to go the rest of the year without anything like this happening again. We only have 10 and a half months to go.
For the Record is a regular column from deputy editorial director Robert Levine analyzing news and trends in the music industry. Find more here.
