Perfect Havoc and The Orchard commemorate their new deal.
Perfect Havoc’s new distribution agreement with The Orchard, inked at the end of February, was a big deal on a number of fronts for the London-based management company and label.
With The Orchard operating in 45 countries worldwide, it was billed as an important step towards ambitions of a greater global profile for Perfect Havoc.
But the announcement also came with a declaration of significant diversification and growth within the company itself, which said that, in the coming months, it will expand its team, diversify its roster, and add to its core commercial dance speciality with longer term artist campaigns and album projects.
Perhaps even more significant, however, was a line in the announcement that stated the Orchard deal would “focus on acquisitions and investments in playlists, media channels and catalogue.”
Speaking to The IMI, Perfect Havoc co-founder Adam Griffin shed further light on this statement, revealing plans for the company to become a 360 operation across both music and social media.
“There is no definitive timeline, but we are going to be monitoring these areas very closely,” he said. “We’re going to keep our eyes and ears wide open and will endeavour to adapt and react to the best of our abilities and capabilities.
“We would like to become a 360 music/social media company and see this as the future. All these areas seem to be synching.”
"It's very much a single-based business, but that doesn't mean you can't build an artist’s career around that."
On the timing of the company’s plans to diversify its output, Griffin said: “My business partner Robert Davies and I like big challenges, and breaking new album artists is right up there. We have shown we can do it by breaking artists with multiple single-based projects. We both have a history of working on album projects at Sony Music back in the day and, frankly, we have a bit more budget to do it now.”
Griffin recognised that today’s streaming eco-system seems to favour singles-based strategies, but said that doesn’t restrict the potential for long-term artist development.
“I agree it’s very much a single-based business, but that doesn’t mean you can’t build an artist’s career around that,” he pointed out. “You only have to look at what we achieved with Joel Corry and our partners, Tileyard and Atlantic, plus what they are doing now as a result. Joel is one of the world’s biggest DJ’s, remixers and dance releasing artists, and not an album in sight. You have to work their socials, stories and numbers alongside the traditional promotion such as radio play.
“I do think the way that the Official Charts Company defines two singles of an album and turns that into what a sale is registered in compared to a physical one needs a serious rethink,” he said, however. “Some of the newer artists are not going to No.1, as their audience doesn’t have the money to buy the hardware to play the physical product – or even just the album itself. The streams count for next to nothing these days when it comes to album chart position. I don’t think it’s changing much, for now, especially with the way playlisting works, as it’s focused on a single track.”
