On today’s episode, Variety chief film critic Owen Gleiberman explains why the new Paul Thomas Anderson drama “One Battle After Another” is a movie for our times. And music chief Jem Aswad reflects on the legacy of Sylvia Rhone as the music industry veteran announces her retirement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Wednesday, September twenty third,
twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am
co editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm
in LA He's in New York, and Variety has reporters
around the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:34):
we'll hear from Variety Chief film critic Owen Gleiberman on
the new Paul Thomas Anderson drama One Battle at a Time.
Owen explains why he thinks it's a film for our times,
and we'll hear from jem Oswad, Variety's music maestro. He
reflects on the retirement of Sylvia Rohne, the veteran label
executive who has been a pioneer in so many ways.
(00:56):
But before we get to that, here are a few
headlines just in this morning day you need to know.
By now, most people know that Jimmy Kimmel is back
on ABC tonight, Next Star and Sinclair stations are still
going to preempt the show that will hurt his ratings
in key markets. Kimmel typically brings in about one point
eight million to two million viewers a night. I'm going
(01:18):
to go out on a limb and say that tonight's
number will be closer to four million, even with significant
station losses. Speaking of ratings, Nielsen's monthly media distributor Gauge
is out this morning. It measures share of viewing among
big platforms. For the month of August. YouTube was still
on top in the United States with thirteen point one
(01:40):
percent of total viewing. Disney is number two with nine
point seven percent, and Netflix was number three at eight
point seven percent. People are talking about Rachel Maddow's interview
on Monday Night with Kamala Harris about Harris's new memoir
one hundred and seven Days. Variety's Dan Didario, in a
column that posts last night, called the sit down quote
(02:03):
ghuily sympathetic end quote. All of those stories and so
much more can be found on Variety dot com. Right now,
Now we turn to conversations with Variety journalists about news
and trends in show business. There's a big, ambitious, new
(02:23):
adult drama coming to the multiplexes this weekend. It's called
One Battle After Another. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tayana Taylor,
and it is very much a film for this frat
moment in America. Owen explains why that is and why
it works so well. Owen Gleiberman, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Good to be here, Cynthia.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
If there's a movie that people are talking about, I
always want to know your perspective. This is absolutely going
to be one of the falls most talked about films,
and it's a big, big swing from Warner Brothers, Leonardo DiCaprio,
Paul Thomas Anderson firepower in the cast start by sort
of telling us set the scene for us on what
the story is.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
One battle after another is a movie set in an
authoritarian America that feels in many ways like what this
one could be turning into. The film is actually rather
uncanny projection of what it feels like it could be
like here in a few years, not the present day.
(03:27):
But it's not a future movie either. It's very much
rooted in the here and now. It's about that regime.
It's about these revolutionary guerrillas who are up against it
and turn out to not have much of a chance
to really succeed, and it's also about this kind of
strange but absolutely fascinating love triangle between one of the
(03:49):
rebel leaders played by Tianna Taylor, the demolition's expert played
by DiCaprio that she becomes partners with, and then this uptight,
sadistic army colonel played by Sean Penn who becomes obsessed
with the rebel leader and captures her and sleeps with
her and gets her pregnant, and the daughter ends up
(04:10):
being raised by DiCaprio, And it's about how that triangle
kind of plays out against the backdrop of this very
serious authoritarian.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
And it is set in America. I mean it is
set in a place with fifty states and the trappings
of America.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Very much set in America. It is not some wild
phantasmagorical alternative reality. It's an active world building where Paul
Thomas Anderson has built the world that we're in, but
just a heightened version of it. But you talk about
a movie that people will be talking about, but it
(04:46):
would really be hard to think of a film in
recent years that hit the zeitgeist jackpop the way that
this one does. Paul Thomas Anderson took the Thomas Pinchion
novel Vineland and a in authoritarian state that looks quite
authentically like with this country could be heading toward.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
What do you think Paul Thomas Anderson was trying to
say with this movie?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
There is something almost karmic about the timing of it.
When he completed this film, Donald Trump had not taken
office yet. He wasn't predicting that that was going to happen.
But I think he really wanted to take the temperature
of where America is right now. And I think this
is the kind of movie that people are going to
be flocking to and talking about as something that really
(05:33):
matters in a way that's very rare now in the
movie landscape. I mean, really, if you were going to
think of examples, you'd have to go back to something
like All the President's Men or Network something like that.
You know, when Civil War came out last year, that
a twenty four movie that was sort of the toy
version of this. It felt very abstract, It hadn't really
(05:53):
been thought through. I didn't think it really seemed to
capture the dueling factions in America or we didn't feel
that deep. This movie is really an immersion what's happening now.
All you have to do is listen to some of
the Charlie Kirk funeral to see that this is a
(06:14):
portrayal of something that really is going on in the
country right now, and I think that people are going
to watch it with a real hush of recognition. I
also think that the movie is almost coming out at
the perfect week, to be honest with you, because I
do think there is this feeling that the Jimmy Kimmel
(06:37):
story is an inflection point in our country, and in
a rather ironic way. Namely, it just seems that a
lot of Americans have basically said during the Trump presidency
so far, we don't care that much about the crackdown
on law firms and higher education, and the fading of
NATO and the rounding up of immigrants and the cozing
(06:59):
up to Vladimir pof But if you start messing with
what we want to watch on TV, we are going
to have a problem with that. That does seem to
be almost the cutting edge of freedom. I think for
Americans they do not want their entertainment taken away. That
may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, but
I think it's hugely symbolic.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Let me ask you this, Owen Gleiberman. As I sit
here in West la and you sit there in Manhattan,
how do you think this is going to play in
places far away from where we are in the Midwest,
in the South. Do you think people are going to say, Oh,
that's Hollywood liberals shaking their fingers at us again.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, I think one of the fascinating things about how
one battle after another is going to play out is
that it is getting the kind of rave reviews that
I think really send a movie out there. The critics
kind of act together and send a message that tells people,
this is such an extraordinary movie that you have to
see it. I think that people will listen, and I
(08:00):
think they're gonna go. And by bay, I mean everybody,
including I think a lot of people from the right,
the kinds of people who would normally shun what they
see as a liberal movie or maybe a movie like
Civil War. This movie feels like such a referendum on
what's going on right now, and it isn't so judgmental.
For instance, it's clearly anti authoritarian. But Paul Thomas Anderson,
(08:25):
in his incredible filmmaking Instinct and Humanity, does not hold
up the revolutionary guerrillas in this movie in some pious way.
He kind of mocks them at times. He shows that
they're very naive, and I think there's something inviting about that.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Does it surprise you that Paul Thomas Anderson is the
writer director that is delivering this at this moment.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, it surprises me only in the sense that Paul
Thomas Anderson takes wild swings that I really respect, goes
off in a different direction each time, so he's completely unpredictable.
But I am in a rather different camp from almost
all critics when it comes to Paul Thomas Anderson in
that I started out as, if I can say this,
I considered myself almost the foremost critical champion of Boogie Nights.
(09:13):
I just went to back for that movie. I fell
in love with it. I saw it more than thirty times.
I felt that it was saying something. I find his
movies interesting. They have not bowled me over the way
that Boogie Knights did and Magnolia to a degree. This
movie to me is his return to form, because he's
(09:33):
always had his extraordinary craft as a filmmaker, but I
think here he has his full humanity, which is what
I think the calling card of those early films were
it is in the end about the DiCaprio characters trying
to rescue his daughter. It's very moving in that regard.
It may connect in a new way for Paul Thomas Anderson,
(09:56):
and it certainly connects for me in a way that
his films haven't in a long time.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Owen. I am glad that in your estimation Paul Thomas
Anderson has his boogie back on. You've done your job,
because I cannot wait to see this movie.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It's exciting to be reminded that movies can still really matter.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Now we'll hear from jem Oswad on the incredible career
of Sylvia Ron. Ron started as a secretary in the
nineteen seventies at Buddha Records. She steps down after decades
of leading some of the biggest music companies in the world.
Jem Oswod, Variety's head of Music, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Thank you for having me as always, Cynthia.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Big big news in the music world, in the label
management world. Sylvia Rone is a name that has been
in Variety's pages for more than forty years. She has
been a force in the music industry for decades across
multiple label groups. She's truly one of the most influential executives,
and she happens to be a black woman, and she
(10:59):
was a black woman rising through the ranks and leading
organizations big organizations at a time when you just did
not see that. So the news of her resignation that
was released today was certainly it signifies a big passing,
not just for the music industry but for the entertainment
industry at large, because she is such a well known figure. Jem,
(11:22):
what was your first thought when this news came into
your inbox?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
The first thought was that it was a surprise, but
not necessarily a shock. Sylvia is seventy three years old.
She started in the nineteen seventies as an assistant at
Buddha Records, where the flagship artist was Gladys Knight in
the Pips. She was the only black woman at the
head of a major label, and I don't mean subsidiaries,
(11:49):
I mean a major, major label, and you don't see
much of that these days anymore either, let alone women
at the tops of these labels. It's a very disturbing
trend in the music industry that women CEOs, women presidents
are being replaced by men. Now there has been no
(12:09):
replacement named it Epic Records yet. In the meantime, it
will be run by Zeke Lewis, who is the president,
and Rick Sackheim who's the general manager. And I think
they're going to take their time to find the right
person to do it because the company it's running quite
well with artists like Travis Scott and Zara Larson and
Tyler and Madison Beer and Meghan Trainor and twenty one
(12:31):
Savage and people like that future as well.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And Jim remind us her first CEO post that was
at Elektra Records was.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
That right, That's where she was first named CEO, But
she had been at Atlantic Records, which was an affiliated label.
They were both Warner labels and still are. But she
was senior vice president of Black Music and she worked
with everyone from ROBERTA. Flack and Donnie Hathaway to Brandy
to Dos Effects. Her big breakthrough our Artist in nineteen
(13:01):
ninety three ninety four was en Vogue you know, free
your Mind and the rest will follow. Lots of hits
like that. That was really her signature artist, and she
was also I'm not gonna lie. She was feared that
the you know, especially in the nineties, and you know,
that toughness really did serve her well as a business person.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It was her group that had Red Hot rapper Travis
Scott do a deal with Fortnite to be in that
virtual reality video game, and that it just seems like
she's got that sea around corner's quality that is really
important in CEOs. Looking over her bio, she took the
helm of Motown Records in the late nineteen nineties, and
of course Motown a storied label. It's literally synonymous with
(13:44):
a particular type of music, particularly American type of pop
and R and B. But at the time she took
it over, you know, Barry Gordy had left. It was
long past the glory days that established Motown. It was
a difficult time for the music business in general. The
words napster was on everybody's lips and all kinds of
craziness ensued. What impact did she have on Motown at
(14:07):
that time?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Multiple significant artists came out of it when she took over,
and she did manage to invigorate it. She brought in
some very strong young executives and a lot of very
strong young artists as well. I don't think She did
the deal directly herself, but they dealt directly with Cash
Money Records, which had such enormous artists as Lil Wayne
(14:29):
and Nicki Minaj and Drake Litt. Bit Later, under her
own umbrella there was Rika Bado, Kid, Cuddy Acon Nelly.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Let's hope right now that there is an assistant somewhere
working really hard at a startup music label that is
going to grow up to be the next Sylvia Ron.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
And not for nothing. She was a CEO at all
three major label groups, at Warner, at Universal and at Sony,
and very few people can say that.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
She's the Fred Silver of the music business. TV lovers
will get that one. Let's give Sylvia Rome the last
word in this segment. Here's a clip from her twenty
sixteen interview with The Pokou of the UK's Wie Suite.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I've been in the business almost forty years and my
successes and my growth have always been based on my performance.
So and in the music business you're only as good
as your last three minutes and twenty seconds, so you're
always feeling that pressure. And I was able to go
(15:35):
from Atlantic and start a new label called East West
Records that I had given a proposal to the chairman
of Atlantic, and in the first year we lost fifteen
million dollars and in the second year we made one
hundred and fifty million dollars. So that kind of set
me up for the next big promotion, which was to
(15:57):
be chairman of Electra Records, and that was probably my
mosts productive as well as exciting time in the business.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. Variety's Power of Women Los Angeles is
set for October twenty ninth. Jamie Lee Curtis, Kate Hudson,
Nicole Scherzinger, Sidney Sweeney, and Wanda Sykes are this year's honorees.
Much more to come on this and we are really
looking forward to it. Variety just wrapped up our coverage
(16:30):
of the Busan Film Festival in South Korea. Now we're
off to San Sebastian and Spain to produce digital dailies
at that festival through the end of this week before
we go. Congrats to Sophia Coppola, the writer director will
be honored by the Museum of Modern Art at its
twenty twenty five film Benefit, and that is set for
November twelfth. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
This episode was.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from
Owen Gleiberman and Jim aswad Stick Snick's hick Picks. Please
leave us a review at the podcast platform of your choice,
and please tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily
Variety
Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and
analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Wednesday, September twenty third,
twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am
co editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm
in LA He's in New York, and Variety has reporters
around the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,
(00:34):
we'll hear from Variety Chief film critic Owen Gleiberman on
the new Paul Thomas Anderson drama One Battle at a Time.
Owen explains why he thinks it's a film for our times,
and we'll hear from jem Oswad, Variety's music maestro. He
reflects on the retirement of Sylvia Rohne, the veteran label
executive who has been a pioneer in so many ways.
(00:56):
But before we get to that, here are a few
headlines just in this morning day you need to know.
By now, most people know that Jimmy Kimmel is back
on ABC tonight, Next Star and Sinclair stations are still
going to preempt the show that will hurt his ratings
in key markets. Kimmel typically brings in about one point
eight million to two million viewers a night. I'm going
(01:18):
to go out on a limb and say that tonight's
number will be closer to four million, even with significant
station losses. Speaking of ratings, Nielsen's monthly media distributor Gauge
is out this morning. It measures share of viewing among
big platforms. For the month of August. YouTube was still
on top in the United States with thirteen point one
(01:40):
percent of total viewing. Disney is number two with nine
point seven percent, and Netflix was number three at eight
point seven percent. People are talking about Rachel Maddow's interview
on Monday Night with Kamala Harris about Harris's new memoir
one hundred and seven Days. Variety's Dan Didario, in a
column that posts last night, called the sit down quote
(02:03):
ghuily sympathetic end quote. All of those stories and so
much more can be found on Variety dot com. Right now,
Now we turn to conversations with Variety journalists about news
and trends in show business. There's a big, ambitious, new
(02:23):
adult drama coming to the multiplexes this weekend. It's called
One Battle After Another. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tayana Taylor,
and it is very much a film for this frat
moment in America. Owen explains why that is and why
it works so well. Owen Gleiberman, thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Good to be here, Cynthia.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
If there's a movie that people are talking about, I
always want to know your perspective. This is absolutely going
to be one of the falls most talked about films,
and it's a big, big swing from Warner Brothers, Leonardo DiCaprio,
Paul Thomas Anderson firepower in the cast start by sort
of telling us set the scene for us on what
the story is.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
One battle after another is a movie set in an
authoritarian America that feels in many ways like what this
one could be turning into. The film is actually rather
uncanny projection of what it feels like it could be
like here in a few years, not the present day.
(03:27):
But it's not a future movie either. It's very much
rooted in the here and now. It's about that regime.
It's about these revolutionary guerrillas who are up against it
and turn out to not have much of a chance
to really succeed, and it's also about this kind of
strange but absolutely fascinating love triangle between one of the
(03:49):
rebel leaders played by Tianna Taylor, the demolition's expert played
by DiCaprio that she becomes partners with, and then this uptight,
sadistic army colonel played by Sean Penn who becomes obsessed
with the rebel leader and captures her and sleeps with
her and gets her pregnant, and the daughter ends up
(04:10):
being raised by DiCaprio, And it's about how that triangle
kind of plays out against the backdrop of this very
serious authoritarian.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
And it is set in America. I mean it is
set in a place with fifty states and the trappings
of America.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Very much set in America. It is not some wild
phantasmagorical alternative reality. It's an active world building where Paul
Thomas Anderson has built the world that we're in, but
just a heightened version of it. But you talk about
a movie that people will be talking about, but it
(04:46):
would really be hard to think of a film in
recent years that hit the zeitgeist jackpop the way that
this one does. Paul Thomas Anderson took the Thomas Pinchion
novel Vineland and a in authoritarian state that looks quite
authentically like with this country could be heading toward.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
What do you think Paul Thomas Anderson was trying to
say with this movie?
Speaker 2 (05:10):
There is something almost karmic about the timing of it.
When he completed this film, Donald Trump had not taken
office yet. He wasn't predicting that that was going to happen.
But I think he really wanted to take the temperature
of where America is right now. And I think this
is the kind of movie that people are going to
be flocking to and talking about as something that really
(05:33):
matters in a way that's very rare now in the
movie landscape. I mean, really, if you were going to
think of examples, you'd have to go back to something
like All the President's Men or Network something like that.
You know, when Civil War came out last year, that
a twenty four movie that was sort of the toy
version of this. It felt very abstract, It hadn't really
(05:53):
been thought through. I didn't think it really seemed to
capture the dueling factions in America or we didn't feel
that deep. This movie is really an immersion what's happening now.
All you have to do is listen to some of
the Charlie Kirk funeral to see that this is a
(06:14):
portrayal of something that really is going on in the
country right now, and I think that people are going
to watch it with a real hush of recognition. I
also think that the movie is almost coming out at
the perfect week, to be honest with you, because I
do think there is this feeling that the Jimmy Kimmel
(06:37):
story is an inflection point in our country, and in
a rather ironic way. Namely, it just seems that a
lot of Americans have basically said during the Trump presidency
so far, we don't care that much about the crackdown
on law firms and higher education, and the fading of
NATO and the rounding up of immigrants and the cozing
(06:59):
up to Vladimir pof But if you start messing with
what we want to watch on TV, we are going
to have a problem with that. That does seem to
be almost the cutting edge of freedom. I think for
Americans they do not want their entertainment taken away. That
may seem trivial in the grand scheme of things, but
I think it's hugely symbolic.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Let me ask you this, Owen Gleiberman. As I sit
here in West la and you sit there in Manhattan,
how do you think this is going to play in
places far away from where we are in the Midwest,
in the South. Do you think people are going to say, Oh,
that's Hollywood liberals shaking their fingers at us again.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, I think one of the fascinating things about how
one battle after another is going to play out is
that it is getting the kind of rave reviews that
I think really send a movie out there. The critics
kind of act together and send a message that tells people,
this is such an extraordinary movie that you have to
see it. I think that people will listen, and I
(08:00):
think they're gonna go. And by bay, I mean everybody,
including I think a lot of people from the right,
the kinds of people who would normally shun what they
see as a liberal movie or maybe a movie like
Civil War. This movie feels like such a referendum on
what's going on right now, and it isn't so judgmental.
For instance, it's clearly anti authoritarian. But Paul Thomas Anderson,
(08:25):
in his incredible filmmaking Instinct and Humanity, does not hold
up the revolutionary guerrillas in this movie in some pious way.
He kind of mocks them at times. He shows that
they're very naive, and I think there's something inviting about that.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Does it surprise you that Paul Thomas Anderson is the
writer director that is delivering this at this moment.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, it surprises me only in the sense that Paul
Thomas Anderson takes wild swings that I really respect, goes
off in a different direction each time, so he's completely unpredictable.
But I am in a rather different camp from almost
all critics when it comes to Paul Thomas Anderson in
that I started out as, if I can say this,
I considered myself almost the foremost critical champion of Boogie Nights.
(09:13):
I just went to back for that movie. I fell
in love with it. I saw it more than thirty times.
I felt that it was saying something. I find his
movies interesting. They have not bowled me over the way
that Boogie Knights did and Magnolia to a degree. This
movie to me is his return to form, because he's
(09:33):
always had his extraordinary craft as a filmmaker, but I
think here he has his full humanity, which is what
I think the calling card of those early films were
it is in the end about the DiCaprio characters trying
to rescue his daughter. It's very moving in that regard.
It may connect in a new way for Paul Thomas Anderson,
(09:56):
and it certainly connects for me in a way that
his films haven't in a long time.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Owen. I am glad that in your estimation Paul Thomas
Anderson has his boogie back on. You've done your job,
because I cannot wait to see this movie.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
It's exciting to be reminded that movies can still really matter.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Now we'll hear from jem Oswad on the incredible career
of Sylvia Ron. Ron started as a secretary in the
nineteen seventies at Buddha Records. She steps down after decades
of leading some of the biggest music companies in the world.
Jem Oswod, Variety's head of Music, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Thank you for having me as always, Cynthia.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
Big big news in the music world, in the label
management world. Sylvia Rone is a name that has been
in Variety's pages for more than forty years. She has
been a force in the music industry for decades across
multiple label groups. She's truly one of the most influential executives,
and she happens to be a black woman, and she
(10:59):
was a black woman rising through the ranks and leading
organizations big organizations at a time when you just did
not see that. So the news of her resignation that
was released today was certainly it signifies a big passing,
not just for the music industry but for the entertainment
industry at large, because she is such a well known figure. Jem,
(11:22):
what was your first thought when this news came into
your inbox?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
The first thought was that it was a surprise, but
not necessarily a shock. Sylvia is seventy three years old.
She started in the nineteen seventies as an assistant at
Buddha Records, where the flagship artist was Gladys Knight in
the Pips. She was the only black woman at the
head of a major label, and I don't mean subsidiaries,
(11:49):
I mean a major, major label, and you don't see
much of that these days anymore either, let alone women
at the tops of these labels. It's a very disturbing
trend in the music industry that women CEOs, women presidents
are being replaced by men. Now there has been no
(12:09):
replacement named it Epic Records yet. In the meantime, it
will be run by Zeke Lewis, who is the president,
and Rick Sackheim who's the general manager. And I think
they're going to take their time to find the right
person to do it because the company it's running quite
well with artists like Travis Scott and Zara Larson and
Tyler and Madison Beer and Meghan Trainor and twenty one
(12:31):
Savage and people like that future as well.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
And Jim remind us her first CEO post that was
at Elektra Records was.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
That right, That's where she was first named CEO, But
she had been at Atlantic Records, which was an affiliated label.
They were both Warner labels and still are. But she
was senior vice president of Black Music and she worked
with everyone from ROBERTA. Flack and Donnie Hathaway to Brandy
to Dos Effects. Her big breakthrough our Artist in nineteen
(13:01):
ninety three ninety four was en Vogue you know, free
your Mind and the rest will follow. Lots of hits
like that. That was really her signature artist, and she
was also I'm not gonna lie. She was feared that
the you know, especially in the nineties, and you know,
that toughness really did serve her well as a business person.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It was her group that had Red Hot rapper Travis
Scott do a deal with Fortnite to be in that
virtual reality video game, and that it just seems like
she's got that sea around corner's quality that is really
important in CEOs. Looking over her bio, she took the
helm of Motown Records in the late nineteen nineties, and
of course Motown a storied label. It's literally synonymous with
(13:44):
a particular type of music, particularly American type of pop
and R and B. But at the time she took
it over, you know, Barry Gordy had left. It was
long past the glory days that established Motown. It was
a difficult time for the music business in general. The
words napster was on everybody's lips and all kinds of
craziness ensued. What impact did she have on Motown at
(14:07):
that time?
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Multiple significant artists came out of it when she took over,
and she did manage to invigorate it. She brought in
some very strong young executives and a lot of very
strong young artists as well. I don't think She did
the deal directly herself, but they dealt directly with Cash
Money Records, which had such enormous artists as Lil Wayne
(14:29):
and Nicki Minaj and Drake Litt. Bit Later, under her
own umbrella there was Rika Bado, Kid, Cuddy Acon Nelly.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Let's hope right now that there is an assistant somewhere
working really hard at a startup music label that is
going to grow up to be the next Sylvia Ron.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
And not for nothing. She was a CEO at all
three major label groups, at Warner, at Universal and at Sony,
and very few people can say that.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
She's the Fred Silver of the music business. TV lovers
will get that one. Let's give Sylvia Rome the last
word in this segment. Here's a clip from her twenty
sixteen interview with The Pokou of the UK's Wie Suite.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I've been in the business almost forty years and my
successes and my growth have always been based on my performance.
So and in the music business you're only as good
as your last three minutes and twenty seconds, so you're
always feeling that pressure. And I was able to go
(15:35):
from Atlantic and start a new label called East West
Records that I had given a proposal to the chairman
of Atlantic, and in the first year we lost fifteen
million dollars and in the second year we made one
hundred and fifty million dollars. So that kind of set
me up for the next big promotion, which was to
(15:57):
be chairman of Electra Records, and that was probably my
mosts productive as well as exciting time in the business.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
As we close out today's episode, here's a few things
we're watching for. Variety's Power of Women Los Angeles is
set for October twenty ninth. Jamie Lee Curtis, Kate Hudson,
Nicole Scherzinger, Sidney Sweeney, and Wanda Sykes are this year's honorees.
Much more to come on this and we are really
looking forward to it. Variety just wrapped up our coverage
(16:30):
of the Busan Film Festival in South Korea. Now we're
off to San Sebastian and Spain to produce digital dailies
at that festival through the end of this week before
we go. Congrats to Sophia Coppola, the writer director will
be honored by the Museum of Modern Art at its
twenty twenty five film Benefit, and that is set for
November twelfth. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
This episode was.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from
Owen Gleiberman and Jim aswad Stick Snick's hick Picks. Please
leave us a review at the podcast platform of your choice,
and please tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily
Variety
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