{"id":161524,"date":"2021-01-23T17:53:14","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T14:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-stan-cornyn-turned-warner-bros-into-rocks-hottest-label\/"},"modified":"2021-01-23T17:53:14","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T14:53:14","slug":"how-stan-cornyn-turned-warner-bros-into-rocks-hottest-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-stan-cornyn-turned-warner-bros-into-rocks-hottest-label\/","title":{"rendered":"#How Stan Cornyn turned Warner Bros. into rock’s hottest label"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How Stan Cornyn turned Warner Bros. into rock’s hottest label<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

The headline was brutally honest, reading: \u201cHow We Lost $35,509 on the \u2018album of the year\u2019 (dammit).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The advertisement described how Warner Bros. Records had poured a huge amount of money into promoting young artist Van Dyke Parks and his avant-garde album \u201cSong Cycle,\u201d which had won raves from critics but sold just 10,000 copies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

App<\/a>earing in Rolling Stone and dozens of underground music news<\/a>papers in early 1969, the ad went wide \u2014 and raised eyebrows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The person behind it was Stan Cornyn, a publicity writer who\u2019d been with the company from the beginning. Besides a love of music, he had one thing in common with his customers: He didn\u2019t like traditional advertising.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge at the time was how do you market music to people who don\u2019t believe music should be marketed,\u201d author Peter Ames Carlin told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Although
Cornyn\u2019s cheeky ad copped to the fact Warner Bros. lost a fortune promoting Van Dyke Parks\u2019 album \u201cSong Cycle.\u201d<\/figcaption>
Michael Ochs Archives<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carlin\u2019s new book, \u201cSonic Boom: The Impossible Rise of Warner Bros. Records, From Hendrix to Fleetwood Mac to Madonna to Prince<\/a>\u201d (Henry Holt and Company), out now, chronicles how the company did just that and became the most successful record label in \u201cthe history of rock and roll.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Warner Bros. Records was founded in 1958, mostly as a place to release the movie studio\u2019s soundtracks. One of the first releases was a collection of songs from no-name studio musicians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Records advertising chief Cornyn was tasked with creating a package to sell it. He decided to credit the album to a mysterious fake artist named Ira Ironstrings and called the album \u201cMusic for People with $3.98 Plus Tax (If Any).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, the fledgling Warner Bros. had a minuscule marketing budget. So the promotions director came up with an audacious idea. He sent a telegram to marketing executives at rival record companies and ordered them to promote Ira Ironstrings, signing off on his missive as \u201cThe National Promotions Department.\u201d The employees at the other companies never bothered to check if Ironstrings was one of their artists, and they ended up pushing the album for two weeks until the scheme was uncovered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Alice
Alice Cooper helped make Warner Bros. a hit brand after tales of his rock \u2018n\u2019 roll lifestyle gained legendary fame.<\/figcaption>
Ginny Winn\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Warner Bros. moved heavily into rock and roll in the 1960s, Cornyn began running his cheeky print ads. One for Randy Newman called out the singer-songwriter\u2019s unusual voice, reading, \u201cOnce you get used to it, his voice is really something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think they were funny,\u201d Newman has said, adding that it\u2019s unlikely \u201cfour people bought the record because of [them].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no doubt the ads \u201cplanted this idea that there was something special and hip about Warner,\u201d Carlin says. Before long, the company\u2019s marketing department was getting as \u201cmuch fan mail as the artists.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1969, the company launched Circular, a \u201cseditious newsletter and music magazine,\u201d Carlin says. In the first issue, a fake classified ad urged \u201cqualified girls\u201d to file paternity suits against the company\u2019s \u201cless fortunate artists,\u201d in order to draw attention to them. A later issue contained a cover story titled \u201cThis Really Sucks,\u201d featuring the angriest letters from customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"James
Big-name artists like James Taylor signed with Warner Bros.\u00a0because of the label\u2019s savvy marketing.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1971, Warner Bros. threw a debutante ball for Alice Cooper at LA\u2019s posh Ambassador Hotel \u2014 without telling the hotel that Alice was not actually a society girl but a hard rock band. The wild party was attended by waiters in gorilla suits and a 300-pound strip<\/a>per, and ended up doing major damage to the hotel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hotel was furious and stuff got wrecked, but it instantly got mammoth amounts of ink and helped catapult Alice Cooper to the top of the heap,\u201d Carlin says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\""Sonic<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Eventually, Warner Bros. became a hit brand. Customers started walking into record stores asking not for their favorite artists, but for whatever was new on the label. Big-name artists were drawn to it as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was one of the unexpected benefits,\u201d Carlin says. \u201cPeter Asher, who managed James Taylor, had seen those ads in \u2018Rolling Stone.\u2019 Through the vibe of those ads, he knew that Warner was going to \u2018get\u2019 James Taylor and give him the freedom to become the artist he needed to become.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Today, the company is home to Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty and others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been 30 years since that golden era ended,\u201d the author says, \u201cbut I think that the DNA of the company is still there.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#How Stan Cornyn turned Warner Bros. into rock’s hottest label” The headline was brutally honest, reading: \u201cHow We Lost $35,509 on the \u2018album of the year\u2019 (dammit).\u201d\u00a0 The advertisement described how Warner Bros. Records had poured a huge amount of money into promoting young artist Van Dyke Parks and his avant-garde album \u201cSong Cycle,\u201d which…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/01\/stan-cornyn.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[70784,73155,39579,70578,39146],"class_list":["post-161524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-advertising","tag-marketing","tag-music","tag-musicians","tag-warner-bros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}