Labels Singing the Blues Over Expensive Failures: “In a business in which some 90% of the 6,000 CDs released domestically each year are unprofitable, according to major-label executives, stars are seen as safe bets–particularly when corporate parents are pressuring music labels to hit quarterly earnings targets.” - what a bunch of nonsense. The entire accounting structure is designed to make things look like a loss. This is L.A. accounting, after all. And “Napster era” users aren’t causing the demise of Mariah Carey. Napsterites are looking for old Etta James or Skinny Puppy or new Disco Biscuits. The only thing about the internet threatening Mariah Carey’s record sales is how obvious it made the fact that nobody wants to see Glitter under any circumstances. Maybe if the music industry spent time sanely developing a large number of artists instead of pushing for big hits while shafting the rest of their portfolio, I might be concerned. But if they did that, they probably wouldn’t be in this situation.