The New View From the Top at MCA Records

Al Teller, who took over last week from Irving Azoff as the chairman of the MCA Music Entertainment Group, sat in his Universal City office after his appointment and spoke wistfully about the coming of the 1990s and the possible effect on some of pop’s legendary figures.

He reminisced about loving such artists as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles so much two decades ago that he charged scores of albums at the student store while attending the Harvard School of Business. But Teller (shown in the MCA Records offices at right) wonders now if the return this year of many of these artists isn’t a last hurrah--at least as major record sellers.

“I think (this return) is great for all of us who grew up with them, but when 1990 finally comes, it (may be) the final nail in the ‘60s,” the bearded Teller said, sitting at his desk in a corner office.

“I’m not for a moment denigrating their talent or their ability to continue to make great music. I’m talking about their role in the industry as sellers of huge numbers of albums. Every generation wants to discover its own heroes.”

In his new position, Teller, 45, stands as one of the industry’s key players in the search for those new heroes. A New York native who is married with a 15-year-old son, Teller started in the record business 20 years ago as assistant to the president of CBS Records Division. He later served briefly as president of United Artists Records and Windsong Records before returning in 1981 to long-time industry leader CBS Records, where he was eventually named president.

Leaving CBS early last year in what he describes only as a “difference of opinion” with CBS Records head Walter Yetnikoff, Teller was named president and chief operating officer of the MCA record group which had become an industry force once more under Azoff’s leadership.

Since Teller’s arrival, the record division--which grossed $661 million in 1988--has had an especially impressive year, registering at one point last summer, the top three positions on Billboard magazine’s album sales chart. While Azoff was still at MCA, it was difficult for outsiders to know who was running the show. But now that Azoff has resigned to form his own music-related company, it’s clearly Teller’s operation.

In an interview about his plans for MCA Records, Teller spoke in a rapid, forceful, confident manner:

Question: What did you bring philosophically from CBS to MCA?

Answer: I think there was a sense of tradition at CBS . . . that it was the Tiffany of the record business, totally committed to great talent. Everything we did was in service of and for our artists. I think that is still the only way to run a record company.

Q: But what about the reality of making a profit?

A: Part of the trick of running one of these companies is to strike the appropriate balance. . . . I still, however, subscribe completely to the idea of pursuing the best, most unique talent you can find and not worrying about how you are going to get the records on the radio. You can deal with radio (and marketing) later. Don’t let the business mechanisms dictate what your artistic vision should be.

Q: In coming to MCA, were you concerned about working for such a strong, high-profiled individual as Azoff?

A: I’ve worked for a lot of high profile people . . . Clive Davis, Walter Yetnikoff, Jerry Weintraub. This is a high profile business. I thought the idea of coming here and helping build the company to the next level was exciting and offered me a chance to get closer to the street. A big part of running CBS was administrative, and frankly, I didn’t go into the music business to be an administrator. I’m pleased at the way things have gone. We’ve had tremendous success over the last 12 months, highlighted, I guess, by the weeks we had albums one, two and three in Billboard.

Q: You’re referring to the Bobby Brown, Fine Young Cannibals and Tom Petty albums. Could you use the Brown album as an example to show us your role in motivating the company?

A: After we worked out a deal last year, I asked Irving to send me all the albums and all the videos so I could get a sense of what was going on at the company. The Brown album completely floored me. It was already up to about 300,000 or 400,000 units at the time, but I thought we could go a lot further.

When I came out here from New York and had my first marketing meeting, I said, “I believe we can sell 5 million copies of the album. Let’s figure out how to do it.” We had numerous meetings and laid out a solid, one-year campaign.

When we had the opportunity of doing the “Ghostbusters II” sound track, the first person we thought of (for the album) was Bobby. The idea was to take time out from releasing singles from his own album to release a Bobby single from the film. This would give him a chance to reach a whole different audience. His album is about 5 1/2 million now.

Part of what I am supposed to do is stimulate (the staff’s) thinking--try to give everyone a general sense of direction. I don’t mean taking an album that you think will sell only 12 copies and say, ‘We are going to sell 10 million of it.’ But it is important to set an (ambitious) vision because everybody gets excited and (the project) becomes a mission.

Q: Do you feel MCA’s standing in the industry is strong enough for you to compete with any label for new talent? Have MCA’s legal problems had any (adverse) effect on signing new acts?

A: (In an interview after resigning, Azoff complained about having spent months embroiled in a federal investigation and legal actions that grew out of the record company’s involvement with Salvatore Pisello, who represented MCA in the sale of discount records early during Azoff’s tenure. Pisello was subsequently convicted of income tax evasion and was identified in a government prosecutor’s sentencing memorandum as having long-standing ties to organized crime groups. No MCA executive was ever charged in the probe, and Pisello has denied the claims of organized crime ties.)

I absolutely feel we are competitive with anybody because any astute manager is going to be looking for enthusiasm and commitment. This company has all the resources, financial and otherwise, necessary. I’m very optimistic about our future. We are already a premier label for black music and for country music, and we are being very aggressive in bringing the rest of our line up to that level. Our A & R people are being very aggressive, signing a lot of good, young rock bands. (Regarding the legal matters) It’s a total non-issue. All we have been talking to our artists and managers about is making music . . . and making careers.

Q: Does it make more sense for MCA Records to sign established, big-name acts at high prices or concentrate on building new talent?

A: There was a time when it was considered a badge of courage if you could steal a superstar from another label, but to me, that was more a macho exercise than a practical (business) move. You can probably come up with some reasons why it would be appropriate at a particular place and time to go after a veteran act--maybe you are a new label and you want to make a splash and show you are a major player. But ultimately the success or failure of a record company is going to be its ability to find and break new talent. Overpaying for a veteran artist is a major mistake.

Q: How do you go about finding the “next great thing?”

A: At the risk of making a generalization in a business where generalizations tend to become disastrous traps, the “next great thing” is usually something that is very different from the current great thing. That’s because it has got to be a radical shift--a left turn or a right turn--and not just another notch in (the same) direction.

Q: Do you think the ‘80s produced as many lasting superstars as the ‘60s and ‘70s?

A: My guess is there will be fewer true superstars to emerge from the ‘80s. One reason is video. I don’t want to denigrate music video. I’m still a fan of them if they are used properly, but there is no free lunch with any of this and perhaps one of the handicaps of music videos is they have lessened the (motivation for young bands to be great live acts).

If you go back to the covered wagon days of the ‘60s and ‘70s, part of breaking an artist was touring that artist, club to club, city to city, so people could see the artist and spread the word. Now that (exposure) is done primarily through videos and that is a highly controlled environment. With videos, you can redo the song and edit it, etc. That’s why artists have been able to come from being unknown to selling 2, 3 million copies without having to go through the important step of playing and winning fans live.

Q: What about musical trends in the ‘90s? Think rap will continue to grow as an influence?

A: Rap is the only new pop musical form to emerge in the ‘80s and it will continue to be important in the ‘90s and beyond.

Q: Did you think it was just a fad at first?

A: Quite the opposite. It was my belief in the importance of rap that led to the signing in 1983 of the Def Jam (distribution deal which gave CBS a major foothold in the rap scene, including such acts the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J). It was considered a shocking signing at the time because rap was still considered an inner-city, ghetto phenomenon, with no crossover potential whatsoever. But if you happened to be in New York and walking down the street, you heard rap everywhere and kids were getting off on it. It didn’t make sense to assume that it was going to somehow stay bottled up in the black, inner-city community forever. So I was determined to get into that . . . even though I heard people talking about the deal as “Teller’s Folly.”

This is a business of judgments and if you can’t step up to the plate and take a whack at something you believe in, then you shouldn’t be in this game. . . . you’re not a player.