Making and breaking records<\/p>\n
Record exec\u00a0Clive Davis.<\/a>\u00a0Don\u2019t know him, then you\u2019ve been under a fossil 600 years. So I asked him to explain what a record executive does.<\/p>\n Clive: \u201cIt begins with signing or appraising the audition of an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n Cindy: Tell us of your early days with Whitney Houston.<\/p>\n \u201c1983. Sweetwater\u2019s Club in New York. Her first song was one I\u2019d commissioned for a Muhammad Ali film but she found meaning that perhaps the composers never knew. I signed her to the key man clause I never gave another artist. That she could leave the company if I left. It proved the intensity of my commitment. Then, for two years, we performed in New York and LA. I was very conscious that I was making a special first album. Took two years to find the material for it.<\/p>\n \u201cI set her on the road for seven consecutive No. 1 records. An all-time record. I treated it especially carefully. She became one of the best-selling albums of all time, selling 23 million worldwide. Never an argument. We were on the same wave from Day One.<\/p>\n Change of tune<\/p>\n \u201cYou collaborate. Listen together, narrow choices. Music\u2019s changed today. Different now. A domination of hip-hop. Social media plays a strong part. Without that, you\u2019re not likely to get signed. It\u2019s affecting the extent of hip-hop. Without a few million followers you might not even get signed by a label. It now affects material that artists either write or record today. It\u2019s now reliant on social media. I listen to new music. I keep very current. I observe the important chart records and orders. I choose among them from my pre-Grammy gala. Like I worked with Aretha.\u00a0With\u00a0Alicia Keys<\/a>,\u00a0it\u2019s more active collaboration because she writes every song she sings.\u201d<\/p>\n If these people were starting today and the quality of music is different today, would they become stars?<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \u201cYou would never do it differently. And there were no artists like them. I would still look for the best material being written. And collaborate to come up with the best material they could break through. I listen to the best of the new music to keep current. I still go into Sony every week, so I want to be aware. I want to be current.\u201d<\/p>\n Since I hear from you from your building next door, and have seen you at the next table at a restaurant we were both in, and have loved you from the Stone Age, though I\u2019m too dumb to know how you do your job, you are a one-of-a-kind in this world.<\/p>\n Screen-ing calls<\/p>\n