If you’ve been curious about this Guy Hands fellow that took over EMI, here’s a nice piece by Tim Arango for the NY Times that reveals Mr. Hands’ disconnect from the music industry and from musicians themselves:

"From the beginning, Mr. Hands did little to ingratiate himself either to EMI’s own employees or executives within the industry, a famously clubby business wary of outsiders. He acknowledged that he is not a music person, and has turned down invitations to visit the recording studio to watch artists’ recording sessions."

"EMI also…barred employees from attending industry events ‘unless these are specific profit delivering activities.’"

So Guy Hands doesn’t know how to market himself and, in slashing expenses, can’t sort out the difference between debauchery and networking.

That’s not a good sign given that the artists themselves are questioning EMI’s marketing capability on their behalf.  Regarding an important Coldplay release:

"Coldplay agreed to release the album only on the condition that EMI pay for the band’s management to hire its own marketing and publicity team, rather than rely on EMI employees."

Given that disconnect and the lack of interesting in marketing overall, Hands also wants to "sharply cut costs by reducing artist advances and paying less on marketing music", it does suggest that their days in the new music business are numbered.

Note: a "confidential business plan" revealed that one approach that they hope might work will involve putting social networks at the center of A&R and marketing.  Such an approach could allow EMI a fresh start with new artists signed to new deals more advantageous to EMI and a transition that includes moving more of their current artists to catalog status.

Which is kind of funny given that:

"Rupert Murdoch had privately scoffed at his acquisition of EMI by saying, ‘MySpace is going to be the future of music, not record labels.’"

"’I said I was going to prove him wrong,’ Mr. Hands recalled in a recent interview."