EMI: The Inside Story

This programme contains some strong language.

There was once an old-fashioned British gramophone company

who would go on to change popular culture forever.

It launched The Beatles

and gave Queen the freedom to make Bohemian Rhapsody.

We wanted it to be massive, and big... Wow factor, you know?

They enabled Pink Floyd to create Dark Side of the Moon

and hired and fired The Sex Pistols.

Why did McLaren take The Sex Pistols to EMI? It is the establishment.

There were times of incredible success and hedonistic excess.

And they thought, "Oh, we'll go broke making this video."

They gave us original talent like Kate Bush, The Pet Shop Boys

and Blur.

EMI was the place to go.

They were the big thing, and they were after us.

It's the tale of economic peaks and troughs,

creative triumphs and rock and roll scandals.

NME used to refer to EMI as "Every Mistake Imaginable".

It later became home to Radiohead, Coldplay and Emeli Sande.

New acts refresh a record company.

It makes everybody from the secretary to the CEO get excited.

This is the story of EMI,

one of the greatest British bands in recording history.

Formed in 1931, Electric and Musical Industries, EMI,

had its origins in the pre-war world of sound recording.

It pioneered stereo sound and developed the tape recorder.

It had 20,000 employees, manufactured gramophones

and produced music on shellac discs.

It's early contracts were with classical artists

such as Sir Edward Elgar.

For the first 30 years, EMI was run as a very traditional business

where men in power wore suits and women were in the typing pool.

EMI was very structured

and it was terribly bureaucratic.

You had a sheet you signed

to go and get records out of the record library.

You couldn't just go and nick them.

Petty cash closed at three o'clock.

Joan was in charge of the stationary

cupboard and if you wanted so much

as a pen or a piece of paper,

you had to get that signed off.

The girls obviously did all the work

and the typing on our little manual typewriters,

only the managing director's secretary

was allowed an electric typewriter. She had an electric Olivetti.

It was immediately obviously a class-ridden place.

-LONDON ACCENT:

-"Yes, guv, what you want?.

-POSH ACCENT:

-"I'm here to see..."

"Oh, yes, sir, come on."

You got the right voice, you got in the door.

This corporate culture with its posh voices

and typically British class structure reached out

far beyond EMI's head office in London's Manchester Square.

It also owned its own recording studios in St John's Wood.

Abbey Road was a large operation,

similar to the BBC, in a way,

That you had all sorts of different

strata of employees there.

You had white coats for the engineers.

If you were a technical engineer

and you fixed things,

cos a lot more things went wrong

back then, they wore brown coats.

EMI staff wore suits and ties and there was a big sign

that said that sports jackets and casual trousers

may be worn at weekends.

That separation wasn't much to do the with the job,

it was to do with the schooling.

Anyone who wore a suit was a public schoolboy,

anybody who wore a brown overall talked in a regional accent.

Before the '60s,

music wasn't the only lucrative part of EMI's business.

They also manufactured cameras for the new television industry,

early computers, and even radar for the Ministry of Defence.

Golf, Charlie, Delta...

Music was just one of many commodities

on the EMI production line.

In the '50s, when an artist went to the studio to make a record,

he was told to go in the back door.

He would go in the back of the studio,

he'd walk down to the studio, get to the microphone,

sing the song from the vocal booth through the glass,

the producer would say, "Yes, good take. You can go now."

He would go out again. He wouldn't hear what he'd recorded.

He wouldn't even meet the people in the vocal booth.

I think perhaps a little bit more echo on the voice.

-Oh, you'd better give him a bit more echo.

-Yes, OK.

The artists were treated with...not contempt,

but there was a point where you were told what to do

right through the '50s and into the '60s.

With the rise of the teenager

and the success of Elvis Presley's early singles,

which EMI had licensed and released in the UK,

suddenly the music business was booming.

# Set my dreams afloat.... #

EMI had signed British artists like Alma Cogan and Adam Faith,

but other record companies such as Pye and Decca

were competing against them, and the race was on to find new talent.

EMI were constantly looking for the next money-making opportunity.

All ready to try one? Let's go.

# Funny but it's true

# What loneliness can do

# Since I've been away

# I have loved you more each day

# Walking back to happiness

# Woopah, oh, yeah, yeah... #

Abbey Road ran a strict three-hour recording session.

She ran from 10-1.

# I never knew I'd miss you... #

Artists would go into the studio and make three sides

and they would have no idea

which was going to the A, B or the discarded record.

It was nothing to do with the artists at all.

It was to do with the producer.

He would go, "That's the A side, that's the B side,

"and I'll put that one on the album. Off you go."

# And mistakes to which they led

# Woopah, oh, yeah, yeah. #

EMI had three lucrative record labels.

Columbia, home of Helen Shapiro and Cliff Richard...

His Master's Voice, HMV, with acts like Manfred Mann...

and Parlophone, mainly releasing comedy records

by the likes of Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers.

But the whole music recording world, and Parlophone in particular,

was about to change dramatically.

In 1962, a public school educated music entrepreneur

brought a young mophead Liverpudlian band to Parlophone and EMI.

MUSIC: From Me to You by The Beatles

The Beatles were just one more of the many groups

which were going around.

They'd been turned down by a few companies.

They came to EMI through their manager Brian Epstein.

Epstein found himself welcomed,

and with people of his own background and way of speaking.

Actually I've been very fortunate in the case of every artist

they have bettered themselves.

To people in the building, he was the right chap,

"He's got a group, oh, let him do his group."

If Epstein hadn't been who he was and been to public school

and spoke the proper way,

The Beatles wouldn't have got a deal.

If Brian Epstein was the right man for EMI,

it also helped that at Parlophone there was another smartly dressed

chap, label boss and producer George Martin.

People have always done slightly different things.

I'm sure even the old composers, Bach and Mozart,

were always up to new sounds, new tricks.

Realising they had struck gold,

EMI's production line went into overdrive.

Releasing eight singles and four studio albums

in The Beatles' first two years on Parlophone.

There was also a whirlwind of live performances,

media appearances and photoshoots.

The demands on The Beatles were enormous.

These guys were in the studio making one single, two singles, albums,

and that routine of work was delivered by George,

and they didn't miss a recording date.

The Beatles famously made the first album in a 12-hour session.

# Can't buy me, love

# Love

# Can't buy me love... #

The Beatles became the dominant force in global pop music.

Parlophone were now the most famous record label on the planet -

a multi-million pound money-making machine.

# I don't care too much for money

# But money can't buy me love. #

It was a lot of money.

You have to remember that a record was

made from something like a halfpenny's worth of vinyl.

But if a pop song hits, the demand comes big and fast and sometimes

40 pressers are switched to one record to produce 30,000 a day.

A halfpenny's worth of vinyl pressed into a record

produced five shillings.

Five shillings from a halfpenny is 12,000% profit.

Record companies had huge amounts of money. No-one more than EMI.

EMI were able to get records into every outlet

that sold records in England,

and with The Beatles they were growing all around the world.

EMI was the place to go.

They were the big thing, and they were after us.

By 1967, there was growing pressure within EMI

to sign the next great band in popular music.

They found the answer

in London's blossoming underground psychedelic scene.

Well-spoken young gentlemen,

Pink Floyd clearly fitted the traditional EMI mould.

We were the people who had our fingers on the pulse of the nation,

as far as EMI was concerned - they were very nice to us

because they were these young guys who, furthermore,

were not spivs from the East End - we weren't...

-COCKNEY ACCENT:

-"Cor, blimey,

"I've got this great deal for you boys."

We were nice chaps from public school, and in my case, Cambridge.

Why has it got to be so loud, so amplified?

Well, I don't guess it has to be, but,

I mean, that's the way we like it.

# Jupiter and Saturn Oberon, Miranda and Titania... #

We were subversive, but we weren't offensive.

EMI beginning to understand that youth culture involves

marketing or selling something which is a little bit

outside of their own approval area, so your upper middle class corporate

people are actually having to sell or get involved in psychadelia.

Here came this group, Pink Floyd, talked to the manager,

"Oh, nice chap, public school, yes, he'll be all right.

"What are they doing? Psychedelia. What's that?

"They take drugs and that." "Really? They take...?"

And EMI persuaded themselves this was an act, this was theatre,

this was a play on the stage that the group didn't actually do it,

this was something they performed, it was selling,

and that way they could finance it and help it

and promote it without feeling that they were approving of it.

They all thought in terms of theatricality rather than reality.

Psychedelia wasn't necessarily

anti-establishment - I think people were more alarmed

at the prospect of it being pro-drug.

But of course no-one really knew what it meant,

it was one of those words that was bandied about.

We got exposed in the News Of The World

for being a band that was simulating drug experience -

and nothing happened.

There was not a peep anywhere else,

cos I was still teaching at the LSE and I was thinking, "Oh, my God!

"That's going to be a bit difficult to explain."

Not a word anywhere.

It was an establishment company,

and they can absorb something like which is all about sex and drugs

and rock and roll.

No problem. The whole establishment thing just keeps these things cool.

Like The Beatles before them, all new artists were expected to

work with the EMI staff producer who had signed them.

Norman Smith was that man.

Norman Smith we were happy to take,

because he had been an engineer with the Beatles.

And they let us record in the studios in Abbey Road

where The Beatles recorded.

And, you had a job number, you could get anything -

and if I needed a Hammond organ and they didn't have one,

they would ship it in.

If I needed a choir, they'd ship it in.

If I needed a Salvation Army band, they'd bring it in.

So we were made up.

The Beatles were actually working on Sgt Pepper's down the hall,

and that was a big deal.

A very big deal, and we were invited in to see them,

it was a bit like being asked to go and meet God, or gods.

The extraordinary wealth generated for EMI by The Beatles

had a positive impact on Pink Floyd.

By 1967, the Fab Four had stopped touring

and were spending more and more time in the studio.

Asserting control,

experimenting with sound and pushing the boundaries of popular music.

The way The Beatles worked in the studio suddenly EMI went,

"Oh, well, this is obviously the new model,"

and the answer was, you spent as long in the studio as you needed

rather than being given three sessions to make a single.

This new climate of artistic freedom suited Pink Floyd.

But it wasn't an overnight change

in the traditional working practices inside Abbey Road.

It was a slightly uncomfortable period of transition

because I was once reprimanded by a man in a brown coat

when I was caught editing tape.

Well, that was seen as something

that the tape ops and the engineers did.

It was a time when artists were being allowed to take longer

and being allowed to develop

and because a band was signed to

a record company for three albums,

five albums, they became family

and hopefully not pressure madly put on them.

Can I put this down?

-Just a second.

-OK.

One of the things we did do after two years,

we renegotiated in order to have absolute unlimited studio time.

Looking back on it,

it probably meant we wasted more time than we should have done.

But on the other hand, we never had that conversation about,

"Oh, well, if we spend another day in the studio

"it's going to cost us however much money."

MUSIC: Mr Soft by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

# Mr Soft turn around and force the world... #

Increasingly aware of the power of their great British brand, in 1972,

the recording company formed a label simply called EMI Records.

And its artists and repertoire department, A&R, were given the cash

to recruit glamorous new artists like T-Rex and Cockney Rebel.

EMI as this monstrous machine,

this huge cooperation, had the wherewithal -

maybe it was Beatles' money,

but they had the income to share with young, developing acts.

# You, so slow, shift your ideas make your mind up

# In a jiffy, let's be fair... #

The first Cockney Rebel album was produced by a man

only his 20s himself, Neil Harrison,

an EMI in-house producer.

The first thing they released was my song Sebastian.

# Generate me limply

# Cos I can't seem to place... #

Neil had the idea of an orchestra and choir being added.

And I'm 22 and I walked in, ten o'clock one morning,

and there's a 40-piece orchestra

and a 30-piece choir to be added to my little song.

And that what was EMI were allowing us to do.

# Somebody called me Sebastian... #

By the early '70s,

the EMI cooperation had expanded its interests further.

They were pouring millions into a new medical division

after an EMI scientist had developed the first CAT scanner,

a machine that would revolutionise medical imaging.

They had also bought their way into a television studio

and had become the owners of a cinema chain.

They were now Britain's biggest entertainment organisation.

The '70s itself, it was an era

where EMI was built on excess, but its success, I mean,

we had a lot of money.

You know, your A&R budget went up

and your marketing spend went up and your fund spend went up.

My job was to organise the parties, spend money

and buy birthday presents, Christmas presents for all the artists.

I bought a horse for Elton John,

so I had to go and obviously

test drive various horses for him.

We were wooing him, I don't think we'd actually signed him.

I think it was Freddie Mercury's 26th birthday party.

A lady come in and she took

all her clothes off and then several well-known

notable people opened bottles of champagne

and squirted champagne all over her naked body.

I had never seen anything like that before.

The alcohol consumption was enormous, without question,

taking bands out for dinners and lunches and things.

You're not going to buy Freddie Mercury

a bottle of Lucozade, are you?

If he wants a bottle of red

it's going to be 60 quid a bottle or more.

I think my world record was £325 for a bottle of red wine.

Even if people were doing nothing, it seemed busy.

Because people were allowed to sit around

and think of creative ideas.

During my time in EMI Records the profits were growing

and so there was not an emphasis on cost,

probably there should have been, but I was much more interested

at that time in trying to build the business.

I cared less about the cost being high

than about developing new artists and seeing the revenue grow.

If the '60s had been the decade of pop singles,

the '70s became the era of mass-selling albums.

For record companies it was win-win.

LPs generated huge profits,

and for EMI groups like Pink Floyd and Queen,

the album became an artistic statement.

# I was told a million times

# Of all the troubles in my way

# Might you grow a little wiser

# Little better every day

# But if I crossed a million rivers And I rode a million miles... #

You know, we were going through a very creative period,

Freddie especially, and we were trying to use the studio

to its absolute optimum and fullest extent.

We were very much into multi-tracking,

complicated harmonies, complicated instrumental things.

And we wanted it to be massive and big and...

Wow factor, you know?

-# Keep yourself alive

-Come on

# Keep yourself alive

# You take your time and take my money

# Keep yourself alive. #

Not really the most modest of aims, but Freddie always thought big,

and he always used to say things like, "Talent without debt."

# Take you all your time and money, honey

# You will survive # Shake... #

EMI realised that some bands did have creativity

to really steer their own career.

It's all about albums and that sort of gave the artists more power

and more creative steerage over their own directions.

By 1973, with eight successful albums behind them,

Pink Floyd had gained total creative control

and had long since moved away from working with in-house EMI producers.

As long as the album sold in their millions

the creatives could be in charge.

If Pink Floyd were happier being produced by Pink Floyd,

hey, if you make a record, do we care?

If you're going to make a rubbish record we might care,

but they didn't. They made things like Dark Side of the Moon.

And we went, "OK, you know how to do this as well."

# And if the dam breaks open many years too soon

# And if there is no room upon the hill

# And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too

# I'll see you on the dark side of the moon... #

It went gold, platinum,

sold a million copies, all that stuff,

so it was a successful record of its time -

of course there was a follow up.

It was the elephant in the room -

you never went into a meeting with Pink Floyd

and said, "What's the follow up to Dark Side of the Moon?"

You were like, "No." No idea how to follow it up.

But because they were now very famous, very powerful,

they basically were able to live in Abbey Road studios and play.

They then sat about making a record

which consisted of no instruments at all.

And it was called Household Objects.

Well, this was simply a continuation of unlimited studio time.

I think we went in with a vague idea of something

that we then persevered with for far, far too long.

They created the sound of a bass guitar by stretching a rubber band

across the table with two things on it

and they had egg slicers and they had pencil sharpeners

and they banged glasses.

And after about six months they got bored shitless with it.

Can I have eggs, sausage, chips and beans and a tea?

And Dave Gilmour said to me, "Do you know we can create a bass guitar

"by picking up a bass guitar and going boing."

And they abandoned the entire project.

Never to be finished, never to be released.

But no-one at EMI was chasing them,

cos they were given the freedom - which didn't happen in the '60s.

By the early '70s the lunatics had taken over the asylum.

The bands were now in control,

and I say lunatics in the nicest possible way.

The UK's company's great commercial success continued,

and artists like Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel took full advantage.

He knew that if he got the performance

and the production right,

EMI's formidable marketing machine would do the rest.

One of the executives was Bob Mercer and he came into Abbey Road

at about 10pm and he said, "What have you got?"

And we said, "Well, actually,

"we think we can play what we imagine should be

"the first single from the album."

# You've done it all you've broken every code

# And pulled the rebel to the floor... #

He heard Make Me Smile once and he said to me, "Number one."

And I said, "Well, that would be nice, Bob. I swear, number one."

And he knew he could do it.

They could move mountains

if they really, really believed in something

and put their hearts into it.

# Come up and see me, make me smile

# Or do what you want run on wild... #

He knew that he could organise the troops.

And when you get those men out there -

they called them the lunatics in their Mondeos, or something -

guys who drove around the country, flogging into record shops

and stuff trying to get you in the charts and that.

-Good evening, sir, how are you?

-All right.

-All right, he said.

In February, 1975, Make Me Smile did make it to number one.

Throughout the '70s,

over ten million people regularly listened to the Radio 1 Chart Show,

and at its peak, over 15 million watched Top Of The Pops.

Persuading DJs and producers to promote and play EMI artists

was the job of the record plugger.

They were characters.

Men with wild personalities, real salesmen

and one was Eric Hall, was my main plugger,

and Eric was just wonderful, eccentric, crazy, funny character.

When people say to me,

"Was it driven by money?"

"Was it driven by profits?"

Probably was, yes,

but not at my level.

I was driven by bands, by artists,

by the songs, by the music, that's what drove me.

He was known as Eric "Get Me A Limo" Hall.

And we'd go and meet him at EMI to go to dinner

and he'd call a limousine.

A Daimler limousine would take us a mile round the corner

to the restaurant and wait for us for four hours and take us back.

Completely mad.

His attitude was,

you got the money there,

we want to give the artists a good time,

spend it!

I didn't believe in not spending money.

You took somebody out for lunch you ain't taking them to Joe's cafe,

you take them to a nice restaurant.

I let Eric do his thing.

I can recall on one occasion we had a very expensive meal for Queen,

and Eric was organising all of that.

And I happened to see a picture on the wall

which reminded me of my first ever girlfriend.

And I said to Eric, "I do like that picture. I do like it."

It's on my wall today.

One time I remember his expenses went over £1,000 for the month.

And the then man who had to sign off said, "What?! How much?!"

And Eric's going, "Come on."

Cliff Richard made a great remark about me.

He said,

"Eric Hall had to leave EMI cos the expense account went platinum."

# Is this the real life?

# Is this just fantasy? #

In late October, 1975, Queen released a six minute single.

Twice as long as most standard 45s,

it was the most sophisticated, most expensive single ever released.

Some feared it would fail commercially

because radio DJs wouldn't play it,

but it went to number one for nine weeks

and sold over a million copies.

# I'm just a poor boy I need no sympathy... #

It was definitely a pivotal moment for Queen

because it sort of catapulted us onto another level,

especially with the video promo that we made,

which at the time was a new thing.

# Thunderbolt and lightning

# Very, very frightening me

-# Galileo

-Galileo

-# Galileo

-Galileo

# Galileo Figaro Magnifico... #

Music was becoming more complex, more elaborate.

While the record industry became increasingly extravagant,

British society in the mid-'70s was suffering financially.

With industrial disputes, electricity blackouts

and rising unemployment,

it was a world away from the self-indulgent excess of prog rock.

The record industry had lost touch with reality.

It needed to reconnect.

MUSIC: Anarchy In The UK by the Sex Pistols

This group are leaders of a whole new teenage cult

that seems to be on the way

to being as big as mods and rockers were in the '60s.

The cult is called punk and the music punk rock.

# I am an antichrist

# I am an anarchist

# Don't know what I want But I know how to get it

# I wanna destroy passer-by

# Cos I

# I wanna be

# Anarchy... #

Malcolm McLaren, you discovered and manage the group.

Now, what about the accusation

that you're more into chaos than anything else?

Well, that's an accusation by people

who really don't understand what kids want.

Having launched the Beatles

and struck gold with the likes of Pink Floyd, T Rex and Queen,

EMI were again looking for the next big thing.

A group who would strike a chord with the nation's youth.

In October 1976, they signed the Sex Pistols.

This was something else.

This is going to be good.

Cos I'd heard a couple of hit songs,

I thought Anarchy In The UK...

and Vacant, I thought those were hit songs.

# There's no point in asking you'll get no reply

# Oh, just remember I don't decide

# I got no reason, it's all too much... #

Why did McLaren take the Sex Pistols to EMI?

It is the establishment.

It was everything that they were meant to be kicking against.

# Oh, we're so pretty Oh, so pretty

# We're vacant... #

I think it suited Malcolm to be with EMI.

You know, the big, respectable - respectable - company.

You want as many people to hear your music as possible,

so...you don't want the least or the worst,

you want the best.

And that's the way we saw EMI.

People are going, "They can't play their instruments, this is crazy,"

to people who were on it

and understood what was going on on the streets of London.

# And we don't care... #

I remember going to my boss, going, "I don't get this.

"I really don't get this," you know?

And he said to me, "It's nothing to do with you.

"It's for 17-year-olds who are unemployed - unemployable, perhaps.

"It's something for them to grab hold of and be part of."

I wanted to do something for me.

Cos look at me now, I'm nothing.

That's what punk is.

MUSIC: Submission by the Sex Pistols

I supported my A&R department,

because they were excited, you know...

Everyone kept saying, "We've got the new Beatles,"

but, you know, you had to encourage people

who thought they'd produce something new and good that would do well.

# I'm on a submarine mission for you, baby... #

In November 1976, EMI Records released Anarchy In The UK.

As a last-minute replacement for Queen,

the Sex Pistols appeared on Today, Thames Television's tea-time show.

They turned up with a bunch of people who were their supporters,

went on television with Bill Grundy,

the most unqualified man in the world to interview the Sex Pistols!

-I always wanted to meet you.

-Did you really?

-Yeah.

We'll meet afterwards, shall we?

You dirty sod.

-You dirty old man.

-Well, keep going.

Go on, you've got another five seconds, say something outrageous.

You dirty bastard.

Many of us at EMI didn't see it.

Cos we were either in the pub or on our way home.

It was six o'clock television. It wasn't something you watched.

-Go on, again.

-You dirty fucker.

-What a clever boy.

-What a fucking rotter.

-Well, that's it for tonight.

Oh, my goodness, this has gone out live,

and people were suitably shocked and...

slightly horrified and slightly worried

about what's going to be the ramification of this.

I'll be seeing you soon. I hope I'm not seeing YOU again.

From me, though, goodnight.

Yeah, there was a bit...a deal of shock, I remember, in the building.

I thought it was all very amusing, actually!

Then you know something is really happening,

when all the news sellers, Sex Pistols, Anarchy In The UK,

all this sort of stuff going on when you're walking down the street,

people talking about this band

who are going to wreck the Establishment and the Queen,

you know, and all this.

And I thought, "This is great, this is fantastic.

"This is what we should be doing now."

It caused a huge amount of concern,

partly because of course EMI as a diversified group, you know,

had all these electronics companies.

And the people in the electronics companies were saying,

"We don't want to work alongside a company

"that's got these kind of people involved with it."

Our people, in the record company, said,

"Yeah, but this is what the record business is all about," you know.

These companies have echelons of layers of responsibility and stuff,

and I'm sure the right hand don't know what the left hand's doing.

Just as well!

There was questions in the House of Commons, MPs writing letters,

remembering EMI was a high-profile Tory company, if you like,

and had contracts with the Government for defence things,

so this was all being thrown about,

and they didn't want to lose any of that,

because of this behaviour by this strange pop group.

The controversy had serious ramifications

for EMI the record label

and for EMI the big business corporation.

Papers like the Daily Mail, for example,

they did a whole page on me.

They also walked up and down the street where I lived

and in the town, saying,

"What's it like to live next-door to this punk man?"

I was given instructions that,

as the EMI press officer who was dealing with the press enquiries,

I was not allowed to deal with the press enquiries,

it now had to be referred upstairs to corporate.

I mean, at the time we had on the board Lord Shawcross,

famous for the Nuremberg Trials.

We had Sir Geoffrey Howe, other luminaries of that kind.

So for them, you know, it was a real culture shock.

And my boss told me to call the promotion manager,

who was on the road with the Sex Pistols.

He was in the room when we called, with the group,

and we had to tell him to "just walk out the door,

"get your stuff and come back".

And in the end I was instructed by the chairman of EMI

to go to Amsterdam to meet Malcolm McLaren,

the manager, and fire them.

# EMI!

# EMI! #

I went to a meeting and I was sitting on the floor

and suddenly in the middle of the meeting they said,

"Who is the disgusting, awful person

"who signed this terrible, disgusting band, the Sex Pistols?"

And I had to put my hand up like a naughty schoolboy

and they just..."Oh, it was you."

It was like, "You!"

And, erm...I roasted there for the rest of the meeting.

We had possibly the most important band of that movement

and we had, you know, sacked them.

I did feel sorry for some of the people there

that we'd established a rapport with,

because I knew that they were really into the band, had got it.

And then it had been taken away from them by people above them.

# Goodbye. #

The sound of punk rock.

The marriage lasted for only 90 days

and the Sex Pistols ended up on Virgin,

a small independent label which promoted itself

as the polar opposite

of a mainstream conservative corporation such as EMI.

I think it's a hats-off to Virgin that they saw,

"It doesn't matter how much problems they give us,

"they're going to be really good for the label."

Branson spotted that.

It showed that EMI could not keep up with the shifting times.

That, in a way, killed off EMI Publishing,

EMI Records of signing any other punk band, pretty well.

When I signed the Rolling Stones, what did Mick Jagger say to me?

He said, "If we go on television and say the F word,

"you aren't going to fire us?"

I said, "No, no, no, no, no, of course not."

MUSIC: Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush

# Out on the wily... #

Just when it looked as if EMI was a spent force,

awkwardly out of step with youthful movements and changing times,

they turned their attention to an extraordinary teenage artist

they had put on a retainer as a 17-year-old schoolgirl.

# How could you leave me

# When I needed to possess you?

# I hated you I loved you, too... #

With her debut release in 1978, now aged 19,

Kate Bush became the first female artist

to top the UK chart with a self-written song.

# ..my wuthering, wuthering Wuthering Heights

# Heathcliff

# It's me, Cathy Come home, I'm

# So cold... #

Even though the company had launched such an original

and commercial musical talent,

the music industry was about to fall off the dance floor.

1979 saw the world plunge into recession.

Record sales slumped

and EMI's medical division had spectacular losses.

The great old corporation was in financial crisis.

Salvation came from an unlikely source.

Electrical business giant Thorn, the king of the light bulb,

proposed a merger.

Well, I thought, "Who the fuck's this?" You know.

"Erm, they make light bulbs. Er...

"What's that got to do with what we do?" You know.

Thorn EMI was mainly involved in electronics, defence and retail.

It soon sold off EMI's medical interests.

The music side of the company would also be under threat,

unless they could unearth and sell new talent.

We were desperately waiting for the next big thing,

and there might have been... slightly less extravagance,

until the party started...anew.

MUSIC: Chase by Giorgio Moroder

It was 1979,

Labour Isn't Working, Maggie Thatcher came to power.

Punk was failing, people had lost interest, the girls in particular.

There was change in the air. I think it was just perfect timing.

Against the backdrop of Thatcherism and early-1980s austerity,

a new scene suddenly developed, built on escapism,

aspiration and dreams of material wealth.

In Birmingham, Duran Duran,

one of the New Romantic movement's unsigned bands,

were looking to find a record company to launch them to stardom.

We were not going to be your typical managers

who take a half-honed act to a label

to be taken in and then whatever the label decide

to do with that act, they will.

You have to control your own destiny.

And we developed the act and we did the complete package.

# Only came outside to watch the night fall with the rain... #

Paul Berrow rang up out of the blue and he said,

"I've got a band people are really interested in."

I didn't know who the hell he was but he...he talked a good talk.

# Looking for the TV sound... #

Dave understood it.

Dave understood it musically and understood it sociologically.

He understood that the time had come for a band of this nature.

# This is Planet Earth... #

An Anglo-Saxon New Romantic band

with a New York groove and glam-rock style would surely be perfect

for thoroughly British EMI records.

# This is Planet Earth... #

But with the new movement gaining momentum, other UK labels

were confidently competing with them to get Duran Duran's signature.

I was in the van with Duran Duran.

I remember when they had a better offer from Phonogram

and they all moved to the other end of the Winnebago,

they wouldn't speak to me.

And it was terrible. We didn't have mobile phones then.

So I had to jump out and get on the phone box and tell them,

"For God's sake raise the offer!

"No-one's speaking to me."

I realised after punk we had to have something more musical.

And I'd previously tried to get Spandau Ballet

but unfortunately they wanted a huge clothes budget

of about 70 grand, so that was out.

New acts refresh a record company.

It makes everybody from the secretary to the CEO get excited.

It's the reason for them to be there.

MUSIC: Girls On Film by Duran Duran

When we finally got them, there was a tremendous atmosphere

in the company that this...

we were going to make this into the next Queen,

this is going to be a big band, you know?

For EMI the arrival of Duran Duran was perfect timing.

1981 saw the birth of a new music channel in America

that propelled the recording industry into the video age.

With the pioneering success of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody

behind them, EMI knew the importance of the pop video

and how it could be used as a marketing tool

to buck recession and sell more records.

In Duran Duran, EMI had the perfect act for the MTV generation.

Duran Duran was a package.

It was targeted at a specific audience,

it was a lifestyle package,

it was about hedonism and it was about glamour,

and they wrapped it up really well.

# Girls on film Two minutes later

# Girls on film... #

Duran Duran insisted on very extravagant videos,

which were phenomenal for EMI at that time.

They thought, "Oh, we'll go broke making this video on Duran Duran."

We informed a lot of the music industry about, there's a degree

of sophistication in the way you take music to market.

There's much more about the brand and how people make a connection

between the music they hear on the radio and the video they might see.

What's your target audience?

People really didn't think in those terms, really, until then.

I think it was just music.

# Her name is Rio

# And she dances on the sand

# Just like that river

# Twisting through a dusty land... #

The imagery gave the public the thought and the feel,

the awareness, that this was an industry out of control with money.

And, of course, the videos were out-of-control expensive, it's true.

We came along at exactly the right moment,

when MTV had a hunger for music videos,

and EMI fed it and wrote cheques out to whatever was required,

in order to be in the game.

# Her name is Rio

# She don't need to understand

# I might find her if I'm looking... #

Producing great music wasn't enough any more.

The importance of branding became central to the pop proposition.

And, in 1985, a new duo emerged that would push that to its limits.

It's time for pop now. This morning, we have a group

who may not be household names at the moment, but who are being tipped

for the top. They're called the Pet Shop Boys,

and their new single is already doing very well, indeed.

# I've got the brains

# You've got the looks

# Let's make lots of money

# You've got the brawn

# I've got the brains

# Let's make lots of... #

Pet Shop Boys had that kind of urban cool about them.

It wasn't purely about the songs.

It was the way those songs were presented and wrapped up.

I think the Pet Shop Boys were the first artists

who really understood the power of branding.

Chris and I insisted on being on the Parlophone label

cos EMI label had no real identity.

I thought of it, actually, as being a bit naff,

which is unfair cos, for instance, Kate Bush was on EMI.

But it always seemed a bit generic,

whereas Parlophone is the label that the Beatles had been on.

When the Pet Shop Boys talk about signing to Parlophone,

in a way, Parlophone signed to the Pet Shop Boys,

because they breathed life into a brand

which everyone remembered for the Beatles.

And they were the first, really, that started to be

the building blocks of a new future for that label.

# In a west end town a dead-end world

# The east end boys and west end girls... #

They were passionately interested in the whole process of making records,

both on the music side, but also releasing records

and bringing them to the marketplace.

So they had opinions about what we did.

# The east end boys and west end girls... #

Our first album cover, Please, if you look at it,

it still looks strikingly minimal.

It's a white cover with a tiny, square picture.

If you were to look at that album against everything else

being released at that time, it's quite shocking.

Because it's so underselling it.

It would be impossible to undersell it any more.

We always wanted the purity of our ideas to be expressed.

Their ideas were incredibly innovative, visually,

in the way that their music was packaged,

in the way that the videos were directed.

They'd be using people like Derek Jarman.

# When I look back upon my life

# It's always with a sense of shame... #

The toy box was wider than simply being a band that made music.

It had a huge effect, I think, on the way the company worked.

And that sort of arty way of doing things

became Parlophone's way of doing things.

# It's a, it's a, it's a

# It's a sin... #

Things have changed dramatically

since the early days of EMI, when artists and records

were treated as here today, gone tomorrow consumer products.

The Pet Shop Boys had a huge impact on the artistic style,

design and production of pop music in the '80s.

They achieved global success

and, at the time, became EMI's biggest selling artists.

It was an interesting period.

In the mid-80s, right into the '90s,

there was lots of money washing around the business.

If you wanted to have a big, excessive pop project,

the majors are the place you'll go to.

If you wanted to be cool and connect with the kids, you're an indie.

# Sweetness I was only joking when I said

# I'd like to... #

The music industry was changing rapidly.

Independent record labels were now leading the way

in developing new talent.

EMI had prided itself on signing the key British acts

of each music movement.

In 1986, they signed the Smiths,

one of the most important indie groups.

But they split acrimoniously before they could release anything.

You had the likes of the NME, really used to target EMI -

it used to be the butt of all their jokes,

everything that was wrong in corporate music.

NME used to refer to EMI as "Every Mistake Imaginable".

The independents were sexier. It was against the Man and EMI was the Man.

# Right here, right now

# There is no other place I want to be... #

Somehow, EMI desperately needed to shake off

its corporate, uncool image.

The radical solution in 1988 was to get into bed with Food Records,

a rising young independent label with acts like Jesus Jones.

We needed the association with someone like Food,

who could be great at incubating talent

under the guise of an independent.

EMI could help fund that and help internationalise that.

And they also had that air of independent cool that EMI needed.

Our role with EMI was to act as a sort of renegade commando unit

that could go off on secret missions,

without any knowledge of our overseers back at EMI HQ.

The first act that Andy Ross and I saw,

we went down to The Cricketers in the Oval.

We came to see this fairly dodgy band called Seymour,

who had one brilliant song called She's So High, at that time.

And, of course, that band turned into Blur.

# She's so high

# She's so high

# She's so high

# I want to crawl all over her... #

We got a lot of stick from our peers,

and a lot of derision for selling out to the Man,

the corporate. It was sucking the whatsit, whatsit.

Corporate was one of those words.

The deal with Food was working,

and Blur's second single was a top ten hit.

Things were looking good for the new relationship.

# There's no other way

# There's no other way

# All that you can do is watch them play

# There's no other way

# There's no other way

# All that you can do is watch them play... #

But then the Americans came along and spoiled the party.

# With the lights out

# It's less dangerous... #

The Blur camp hit back in true British style.

Damon's always been quite a good judge of the climate.

He reacted against the grunge invasion,

and reacted quite vigorously in an opposite direction.

# He's a 20th-century boy

# With his hands on the rails... #

Blur's second album, Modern Life Is Rubbish,

was a celebration of where they lived.

From the promo photos, through to the video imagery,

they looked and sounded firmly in the tradition

of EMI's Great British acts.

By default, I think Damon took up this mantle of,

"Let's be very British."

They became definitively British, really, and set the tone of,

"Let's revive the spirit of the Beatles and the Stones

"and the glory days of Britain, irrespective of any jingoism."

It was all about the Great British tradition of pop music.

This ultimately, of course, led to Britpop.

By the mid-90s, cool Britannia was confidently promoting

our great art, fashion and music scenes to the world.

Blur were at the very epicentre,

with their special brand of Britishness.

# All the people

# So many people... #

The '90s were good to EMI.

They also snapped up their old punk competitor, Virgin Records,

in a £500 million deal.

Together, they would become home to acts such as the Spice Girls,

the Rolling Stones and Robbie Williams.

But before all that, a battle for number one between Blur

and indie kings Oasis grabbed the headlines.

Bucking all recent trends,

the uncool corporate giant triumphed once more.

Hello, we're Blur. We're number one,

and we're going to be camping it up later on Top of the Pops.

To me, it rubber-stamped the fact that we were the major label

with the spirit of an indie.

All of a sudden, EMI became competitive,

in terms of signing talent.

Artists were doing the rounds and had offers from competitors,

but were waiting, holding out for the Parlophone offer,

because that's really where they wanted to be.

Not since the golden age of the Beatles

would EMI and Parlophone have such relevance.

They were once again at the forefront of British music,

attracting new acts such as Supergrass, Coldplay and Radiohead.

# Can't get the stink off

# He's been hanging round for days... #

But after a perfect storm of Great British music,

dark clouds were gathering.

The youngest guy who worked in our label came into my office

and he showed me this shiny little disc, which looked like a CD.

He said, "It's a CD-R." I said, "Oh, yeah. And?"

He said, "I've burnt some tracks on it." I said, "What do you mean?"

He said, "I copied some tracks on it."

I said, "Right. And where did you get them from?"

He said, "I downloaded it from the internet."

I said, "So what's on there?" He said, "Beatles."

I said, "Oh, which songs?"

He said, "All of them."

Piracy and file sharing swept the globe.

New technologies would threaten the very existence

of the music industry.

Britain's oldest record company was struggling to survive.

After a brief takeover,

and following the financial crash of 2008,

some of EMI's biggest acts, including the Rolling Stones

and Radiohead, parted company.

It increasingly looked as if the old-style record labels

had had their day.

The keys to the kingdom that the music industry held,

is that if you wanted a career in the music business,

you had to sign to a well-funded indie or a major label.

They owned the factories who made the records,

they put it into trucks, sent it to stores.

Gone. Absolutely gone.

Things had to change - and in 2013, Parlophone went its separate way.

Virgin and EMI started a new chapter together.

People began signing up to subscription services

and finally started paying for music again.

In business terms, 2015 was the most successful year

for the music industry since the late 1990s.

The EMI and Parlophone brands live on,

and at the heart of it all, there is still one constant.

Great British music.

EMI was the company that brought the Beatles to the world,

and, not only that, they brought Pink Floyd to the world,

and they brought Kate Bush to the world,

and they brought Blur to the world.

Duran Duran, Radiohead, it goes on and on and on.

When you put together the hall of fame of great British artists,

I think you'll find a significant majority of them

will have come through EMI.

MUSIC: Pompeii by Bastille