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Black Sabbath’s manager, Don Arden, was nicknamed “the Al Capone of pop” for his ruthless business dealings. His protege, Peter Grant of Led Zeppelin, once helped dangle Robert Stigwood out of a window by his ankles.
Things have changed in the music business. And while modern managers are likely to be better behaved, they are also more likely to be women.
On Thursday, Angela Becker will be honoured at the 2024 Artist & Manager Awards alongside Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe for her role as manager of Pet Shop Boys. Niamh Byrne, who looks after Blur and Gorillaz, is the new chair of the Music Managers’ Forum, which hosts the awards alongside the Featured Artists Coalition.
Just two women were involved in 1992 when 300 managers founded the MMF, but now 38% of the 1,500 members are women, including Annabella Coldrick, the chief executive.
“The industry is much more diverse in many ways,” Coldrick said. Women were managing before, but are now “much more visible”, she added. “They maybe weren’t getting the acknowledgment they should have been.”
Part of the reason for greater female representation is that the role of manager has changed. A new biopic of Brian Epstein, Midas Man, shows how instrumental he was in getting the Beatles signed to Parlophone, breaking through in America, and taking them on tour – and how nervous he was of being cast aside by his clients.
Managing remains precarious and touring is still important, although Brexit and US visa costs make it harder for new acts. Epstein almost gave away the Beatles merchandise, accepting a deal for just 10% of the proceeds, while modern managers need to keep track of a rapidly changing merch market, which now even includes virch – virtual merchandise in video games.
They also need to understand TikTok, and find ways of telling their artists’ stories and grabbing attention other than on Top of the Pops or The Ed Sullivan Show.
“It used to be a late night, nightclub industry which is not a very enticing working environment for young women,” said Sophie Kennard, who manages drum’n’bass stars Chase & Status and co-founded Frame Artists with Becci Abbott Black.
Kennard, who will be named manager of the year this week, said the big players in the industry had shrunk as streaming had grown, so the big labels don’t have the same impact as 20 years ago.
She was surprised that 38% of managers were women. “Where we work in the electronic side of the industry, it’s still very heavily male. [It means] the teams artists build around themselves are their mates – male friends, male producers. There’s still very few leading female figures for younger people to follow.”
The same applies in other parts of the industry, according to Jade Busola, who manages Afrobeats star ThisizLondon. He asked her to “help out” after they met in a Lagos recording studio and three years later, she has helped him become a breakout star after producing the first Afrobeats tune to reach a billion streams on Spotify: Calm Down by Rema and Selena Gomez.
“I’m often the only woman in the room,” she said. Although more women are artists and songwriters, the producers, session guitarists and pianists and audio engineers are usually men. “Most of the time I don’t think about it but then I become hyper-aware and I feel I have to be assertive, to make sure no one takes any vulnerability for weakness.”
Louise Latimer, named Breakthrough Manager in 2023 for her work with Self Esteem and The Big Moon, said a female manager told her of a recent lunch with another male manager who only ever addressed her male colleague, even when answering her questions.
The biggest problem she faces is that “you get to the door of a venue or the dressing room and the staff always think you’re a groupie”.
“I’m 40 and it still happens now,” Latimer said. “I had Big Moon playing at the O2 last week – I couldn’t get past security because they wouldn’t accept that I was manager of the band playing. They were so convinced I had a job in one of the catering boxes. I had to show them my badge and I think I just started to get angry.”
Latimer, who fell into management 18 years ago after running events at university, said the industry was still largely run by men.
“If I’ve got a band and I want to get them a deal, 95% of the people that I’m pitching that band to are men – white men between 25 and 60, and that is quite weird.
“It would just be really interesting to see what the musical landscape would be if 50% of the decisions about investment for new music were made by women.”
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