| Wednesday 14 January 2009 |
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Billboard extended Q&A: Don Ienner
|  | | Don Iener | Don Ienner, IMO president/owner and the former Sony Music chief, recently sat down with Billboard for his first extensive, on-the-record talk in more than a decade. Below, Ienner touches on his early days in the music business, his mentors, working with music icons like Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, Napster, Eliot Spitzer, his last days at Sony and much more. Strategically, what were the biggest challenges and what did you have to do?
The foundation of, to me anyway, of Columbia, obviously was Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond and Tony Bennett. But, we were nowhere in the alternative music area. On my first trip to the West Coast for Columbia, in May of '89, I heard two bands and we signed them both. And we broke both those bands - Alice In Chains and Toad The Wet Sprocket - and that was a really important thing for us to do. I brought in Steve Tip, he was maybe the most important marketing and promotion executive at Warner for alternative music. We built street teams. Obviously, Tommy had signed Mariah Carey and that was a wonderful way to kick off the new Columbia, and we worked very closely on it, from a creative standpoint, from a marketing standpoint and, really, it was an incredible run. You were there when that first record came out, "Vision of Love"?
I was the head of the company and "Vision of Love" was my pick. Not too many people wanted that song, but that was the one that I knew was the pick because it was an R&B record, and it was only her - she was the only one that could have written and sung that song. Of all the great songs on that album, this is the one that I felt would define her most, and it went on to be one of the songs of the year. Number 1 R&B record, number 1 pop record. It set up an incredible string of number 1's for her. What do you think of Mariah's career trajectory at this point?
Well I'm thrilled that she had a comeback from the unpleasantries of a few years ago, with the movie ["Glitter"] and everything. It just shows her resilience and it shows she stays in touch, she stays current, she knows what she's doing. (excerpt from Billboard)
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