EMI on life support

It's all over the media by now that EMI, one of the longest running and tradition rich recording and music publishing companies, has been taken over by Citibank, one of its major creditors. It has been demonstrated quite clearly over the last few years, that banks don't even know how to manage money, which is precisely the field they proclaim to be experts in, so what on earth are they going to do with a large music company which holds in its catalogue, recordings of some of the most treasured interpretations of classical masterworks. The verdict that is being tossed around at this moment, is that they will more than likely sell EMI's assets to another label.

Unfortunately, that to me seems like a rather scary prospect. As always, Citibank will probably sell to the highest bidder, regardless of who that may be. And of course, being the highest bidder entails that you are a large corporation with more money than appreciation for good music. Citibank does not know the real value, not the monetary value, but the cultural and historical value of what they're holding at the moment, and nor will the other large music conglomerate that takes it off their hands. This is not unlike a yard sale. Whoever buys EMI now will turn around and sell it in their own yard sale for a profit. Everyone knows that major labels, in their appetite for money, have lost sight of music for music's sake.

Please Citibank, if you have any sense of decency at all, the logical and right thing to do would be to sell to a smaller independent label that lives for music and would know what the true value of EMI really is, and would handle and preserve it with the love and respect it deserves. You will most likely lose money in the process, but who cares, that is what you're good at, isn't it? And I almost forgot, it's not your money anyway, it's ours.