COMMENTARY : Record Makers Still Bet Megabucks on Hit Artists

Michael Jackson spent millions of dollars and much of two years recording his new “Dangerous” album.

Country singer Garth Brooks and rock band Nirvana needed only an average of $125,000 and about two months each to deliver their “Ropin’ the Wind” and “Nevermind” collections respectively.

So what lesson does the pop world learn after Brooks and Nirvana both outsell Jackson during the busiest sales week of the year in the record industry?

Does their success mean that executives are going to rethink the recent “contract madness”--as one record insider terms it--that saw Sony sign Michael Jackson to a $65-million deal and Virgin pay about $40 million each for Janet Jackson and the Rolling Stones?

Will Warner Bros. Records now think twice about proceeding with its rumored $30-million pact with Madonna?

Not at all.

What you have going on right now is a bunch of record executives salivating over the possibility of signing Nirvana and, especially, Brooks to a megabuck deal. Unfortunately, their contracts won’t be up for grabs for several years.

There is so much money to be made when you strike gold or platinum in the record business that every major player will continue to shell out millions of dollars for proven sellers.

Companies spend big bucks on pop stars for the same reason the Dodgers let Darryl Strawberry add as many zeros as he wants to the end of his check and the Red Sox include all sorts of bonus clauses to sweeten Roger Clemens’ pact. The odds are the stars will continue to deliver.

Being fifth on the charts this week may be embarrassing for Jackson, who seems obsessive about being No. 1, but industry observers don’t tend to read the sales figures of recent weeks as a “loss” for Jackson. After all, his album has sold 1.8 million copies in the United States in just five weeks and it’s huge around the world, where it reportedly has sold another another 6 million. Sony doesn’t care where the money comes from--as long as it keeps coming.

What the observers see instead in the year-end domestic figures is a victory for Nirvana, a Washington state alternative/college band making its major label debut, and Brooks, a country superstar who still receives almost no pop airplay.

No one, in fact, is probably a more appealing investment right now than Brooks, whose sales figures during the last six months are phenomenal.

Brooks’ new album, “Ropin’ the Wind,” has been in the pop and country Top 10 for more than four months, while his earlier two albums also continue to sell impressively. Estimated sales of “Ropin’ the Wind”: at least 4 million. Total sales of the three albums: nearly 13 million.

And Brooks is a guy who does a lot of a record company’s work for it. The country star, best known for such hits as “Friends in Low Places” and “The Dance,” travels the nation on his customized bus, doing about 100 shows a year, signing autographs for hundreds of fans after each performance and stopping by to visit on the Nashville Network--country’s equivalent of MTV--whenever asked.

The fact that you could have signed Brooks or Nirvana just a short time ago for a relative pittance is a reminder that finding talent in the record business is like playing roulette. Major labels place their money--usually $250,000 to $750,000 a throw--on dozens of new acts a year, knowing they’ll make a profit if even a fraction of them connects strongly with record buyers.

When newcomers do connect, there’s a rush to find more acts like them. Just as record companies over the years spent millions in pursuit of the new Bob Dylan or Prince or Guns N’ Roses, we’re now going to see a lot of executives step up to the roulette wheel and place bets on a lot of acts that--guess what--offer the youthful alienation of Nirvana or the country dynamics of Brooks.

It’s not exactly healthy for pop music, but it’s the way the business works. Anything else is considered just too dangerous.