Frank Sinatra And The Art Of The "360 Deal"

Frank Sinatra was a musical pioneer when he was alive, and he's done it again. This week, almost ten years after his last "Dooby dooby doo," Ol' Blue Eyes has become the first recording artist who is, shall we say, not currently alive to make a "360 deal" with his record company, Warner Reprise.

360 deals are the latest attempts by record labels to not lose their shirts in the face of swiftly eroding music sales. The label takes care of everything - not just getting the records into the stores but touring expenses, merchandising, you name it - in exchange for a cut of those revenues, which used to be purely the artist's moola. It's the labels' way of admitting that they can't pay the rent on record sales alone, and the artists' admitting that D.I.Y., viral marketing and all that good post-Napster stuff can still only take you so far.

The good news about Sinatra's 360 deal is that his Reprise catalog, encompassing everything he recorded from 1960-88, will most likely get a much-needed overhaul; many of his Reprise albums are out of print, and others haven't been remastered in over 15 years. Unreleased material still in the Sinatra vaults has been promised as well.

The downside, for serious Sinatra fans, at least, is that over the last few years, CDs have become loss leaders used to promote other, more profitable ventures. Since Warner Reprise, in conjunction with the Sinatra estate, now controls his likeness, name and image as well as his music, we should expect an Elvis-like stream of cheesy doodads with the Sinatra name emblazoned thereon. This for a man who begged his daughter Tina, when she took over his licensing rights in the early '90s, "Please don't put my face on a coffee mug." Frank, you have no idea.

But in the end, this die-hard, box set-having, dozens of bootlegs-owning, DVDs of even his crappiest movies-watching fan doesn't really care. If we get official releases of the Sydney, Australia show from '61 that's the best he ever did, or all those still-unreleased studio outtakes from the '70s and '80s, or his legendary United Nations performance from '63, I'll gladly buy a box of Hostess Ring-A-Ding Dongs or "All The Way" brand condoms to subsidize them. I just hope that the man they called "The Voice" won't be doing 360s in his grave.

Comments

[zendem1]

Please..no "velvet Franks"..No Frank decanters..Turn the lights down, pour a stiff one, and listen to "Only the Lonely," and "In the Wee Small Hours." Hopefully, it will be cold outside, with a light drizzle.

[Michael Giltz]

Fly Me To The Moon Pie -- good idea!

My question about 360 deals (and personally, I'd settle for a 180 deal or even a 90 deal or any deal at all) has not been answered in any of the articles covering artists ranging from madonna to unknown acts is this: does signing a 360 deal mean the artist DOESN'T go wildly into debt to the label just to record their music? Unlike movies and tv and books -- where artists get money up front and the backers take the risk on whether the product will make money -- the music industry has always rather bizarrely 'LOANED' money to the bands who then go wildly into debt just to record an album and go on tour. They have to go platinum just to break even. So if the label demands a cut of concert grosses and t-shirt sales and everything else, do they give up the indentured servant structure of the traditional deals in exchange?

[loril]

Although the majority of his fans are probably my parent's age, don't write off us middle aged followers. I fell in love with Frank's voice back in the 70s when I was a kid and I put him into rotation with David Bowie, the Doors and Zeppelin! Later, as a teen, I knew all sorts of different people in my age group who also dug Sinatra in a big way. Parties at college often featured some Frank on the turntable. Punks loved him...partiers loved him...even jocks and frat boys admired his alpha male persona.

I listen to and enjoy all kinds of music. But standards are what I go back to again and again. And Sinatra stands out to me even amongst the pantheon of greats from the mid 20th century. I will be eager to pick up some new-to-me recordings. I think his myth is bigger than the cheez and that, even from beyond the grave, he will be able to maintain it.

[hiprogloho]

With the dreck that permeates evil-is-hip pop culture these days, Sinatra deserves to be as ubiquitous as Elvis. And if the product tie-in tackiness helps sell his brand of immortal music to drown out the new junk, then so be it.

I beg to differ on prime period bias. Chairman Frank became a man, a cool cat and a legend in his 60s Reprise years and My Way, Strangers In The Night and Let Me Try Again remain his most memorable recordings to generations of fans.

Our father of song could use an expanded media empire as well as a TV cable channel. In these dark days, the old school timelessness of the good old days helps old souls escape the new global disorder and the scourge of reality TV.

[PlanetKansas]

30 years ago, I heard Ken Kesey give an amusing and rambling riff on dead rights. His main point, that dead people like Marilyn Monroe, James Dean and Jim Morrison had no say it what the world does with their ghosts, and that the world should just let them be.

He wove into his thoughts Grateful Dead mythology and the evening was funny, profound and deep.

I think about his words often, the dead have no say in how they are forced to continue living. There is little dignity left, and anything and everything is for sale.

RIP Frank, though to my ears, the Reprise catalogue is syrupy, maudlin and well past his prime. Give me the Capital years any day.

[Moondanzer]

Sinatra's farewell in '71 I believe, where he sang "Angel Eyes" is one performance I could watch over and over and over. It was simply the Ultimate!! He truly believed at the time he would never return and gave it all!! Sorry Elvis, ol' blue eyes was the KING! There will never be another!!

[SamanthaJaneSalem]

Hopefully the saloon album "She Shot Me Down" from 1982 will become available again because I'm tired of seeing copies of it at Amazon Marketplace Sellers-- going for $800.

I also wonder if Sinatra's "retirement" concert from 1970 was ever recorded, which he closed with the lights fading to pitch black as he sang the last line of "Angel Eyes"-- "'Scuse me while I disappear."

After Ol' Blue Eyes was back from "retirement" in the mid-1970s he recorded a nice little M.O.R. number called "I Believe I'm Gonna Love You"-- I would love to have that song on CD.

But we can do without the disco version of Cole Porter's "Night and Day".

[3fingerbrown]

Can't wait to settle into my easy chair to listen to those pristine new Sinatra remasters, with a glass of Strangers in the Night Train Express in one hand and a Fly Me to the Moon Pie in the other.