Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus

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”They passed along some demos as a courtesy, not expecting anything. Tom sent them to me with a one-line email.” Max picked up his pen, turning it once.

”’You need to hear this.’”

”And?” Marvin said.

”And I sat with them for an hour.” Max looked directly at Marvin. ”She doesn’t sound like anything in the market. She’s pulling from jazz, from soul. She’s fifteen in North London, and she has the phrasing of a woman who has lived through things. It’s not affected. It’s not imitation. She sounds like she was *born* with something in her voice most people never develop. The songs are also genuinely good. Not ’good for fifteen.’ Good.”

”Parents,” Marvin prompted.

”Father is Mitch Winehouse. He drives a cab. Very involved—she’s clearly his world. Mother is Janis. The understanding is the family wouldn’t oppose a conversation, but they need to feel whoever they’re talking to takes their daughter seriously, rather than just looking at a commercial proposition.”

”Which is accurate,” Marvin said.

”Which is accurate,” Max agreed.

”Who handles the approach?”

”I’d like to handle the first contact myself,” Max said. ”Or rather, I’d like Tom to set up an informal meeting—dinner, not an office—and have me there. Not as a label. Just as someone who heard her work and wanted to say so in person. The father is the relationship to build. He’s protective, smart, and will be involved in everything. Getting him to trust the process matters more than getting him to sign anything.”

”Timeline,” Marvin said.

”Realistically, relationship-building runs through the rest of the year. A development conversation, if things go well, starts in early 2000. Nothing formal before then, and we don’t push for formal. We let them come to it.”

”Development plan,” Marvin said. ”What does she need?”

”She doesn’t need vocal coaching—that would be the wrong move; she has an instinct coaching could flatten. She needs production exposure. Time in a professional studio environment to understand the technical side and develop the relationship between what she hears in her head and what comes out of the equipment. The songwriting and the voice are already there.” Max paused. ”She also needs time. She’s fifteen. What makes her extraordinary right now is that she’s writing from an immediate emotional place. That place will deepen and change in ways we can’t control and wouldn’t want to. You don’t rush that process. You support it, stay close, and wait until she’s ready.”

”And the London branch can hold that space?”

”That’s what it’s for,” Max said simply.

”Avril,” Max said, moving to the next page. He said the name with a different inflection—differently interested, like holding a distinct kind of valuable object.

”Canadian,” Voss said, checking his notes.

”Napanee, Ontario. Fourteen years old. She’s performing locally—church events, county fairs. Country influence, which is her environment, but you can hear her pushing against it in the recordings. She has a guitar and an attitude that comes through even on rough tracks.” Max looked down. ”She came to us through a contact in the Toronto music scene. Not a formal submission, just someone mentioning her name and our person following up out of curiosity.”

”Voice?” Voss asked.

”Strong. Unconventional by country standards. There’s an edge that doesn’t fit the Nashville mold, which is probably confusing people who hear her in that context. She sounds like she’s looking for a language that fits her and hasn’t found it yet.” He paused. ”When she finds it, it’s going to be very specific and very hers.”

”What language is she looking for?”

Max considered this carefully. ”Rock, I think. Or something adjacent. She’s got the emotional directness of a rock vocalist and the melodic instinct of a pop writer, currently packaged in country because that’s what her environment hands her. She’s fourteen. She doesn’t know yet that the package doesn’t have to match the contents.”

”She’ll figure it out,” Marvin stated.

”Yes,” Max agreed. ”The question is where she figures it out, and with whose help.”

”Canada is complicated,” Kwan said. She had been quiet, listening with focused intent. ”The Canadian talent development structure has its own dynamics. There’s a real nationalism in the industry there—broadcasters, CanCon regulations, the local label structure. Moving a Canadian artist into an American or European development frame requires handling the transition carefully.”

”We’re not moving her anywhere,” Marvin said. ”Not immediately. She needs to stay where she is. You don’t pull someone out of the environment forming them before they’re formed.” He glanced at Max. ”But we make contact and contract.”

”I’ll go through the Toronto connection,” Max said. ”Same approach as Amy. Informal. No pitch, no paperwork. Her parents are the key variable. She’s living at home, the family is religious, and they’ll need to be part of any conversation. We’ll be talking to them as much as to her.”

”Development needs?”

”Opposite of Amy in some ways,” Max said. ”Amy needs time and space. Avril needs direction. She needs someone to help her identify what she actually is musically, and give her the tools to build toward it. There’s a production conversation to be had about the kind of record she’d eventually make that is honest to what she’s doing, rather than just what the market expects from a teenage girl with a guitar. She’ll fight for what she wants. That’s clear. So whoever does that development needs to be someone she respects, rather than someone she’s managed by.”

”Find the right person,” Marvin said.

”Working on it,” Max said.

There was a brief pause. Max refilled his coffee at the back of the room, and Voss reviewed his notes. The room breathed, acknowledging the heavy workload without actually stopping. Max returned to the table. ”The Korean groups.”

This section was longer because the situation was more complex. Max was not a man to simplify complex situations just to appear in control.

There were two acts. The first was a vocal group—five members, trained in the rigorous, systematic way of the Korean idol development structure that was still assembling its institutional form in 1999. They sang with precision, every harmony placed with a deliberate accuracy most Western audiences couldn’t fully conceptualize. The second was smaller—three members—operating in a different register entirely. They sat somewhere between the emerging Korean hip-hop underground and the commercial idol format, carrying an edge their management was trying, with mixed success, to smooth down into something marketable.

”The vocal group is already signed to a domestic management company,” Kwan said.

”The relationship we’d be pursuing is licensing and international distribution, not a direct signing. Given how the Korean system works, that’s the right entry point. Trying to pull them out of the domestic structure would create more friction than it’s worth.”

”International rights for specific territories,” Hendricks noted, thinking in publishing terms.

”Japan is the obvious first expansion. Southeast Asia. If the US conversation happens, it happens later through a separate arrangement.”

”The second group is more complicated,” Kwan continued. ”The management situation is less settled. There’s a principal—a producer in his late twenties—who’s developing them and has significant creative influence. He’s the relationship. If you’re talking to those three, you’re really talking to him.”

”What does he want?” Marvin asked.

Kwan paused. ”Creative autonomy. Resources. And, I think, recognition of what he’s building—not just the artists, but the aesthetic. He’s not looking to hand them to a label that will tell them what to sound like.”

”That’s not what we do,” Marvin said.

”I know that,” Kwan said carefully. ”But that’s what he assumes, because it’s what almost every label does. We need to demonstrate that we understand what they’re doing and why it’s valuable before making any structural proposals. He needs to believe we get it before he’ll believe anything else we say.”

”Who goes?” Marvin asked.

”I go,” Kwan said. ”With one of our A&R people who knows the Seoul underground scene specifically. I want someone who can talk about what’s happening in the clubs there, which producers are doing what, who’s influencing who. The conversation needs to feel like it’s between people paying attention, not a label representative and a local act.”

Marvin considered this briefly. ”Go,” he said. ”Take what you need. Take your time.”

The room went quieter than it had been all day. It was the quiet of people who had covered significant ground and were now sitting with it, taking its measure.

Max looked at his notes, then at Marvin. ”These are all long timelines. The Barbados girl—minimum three, four years before anything commercial. Amy, around one to two. Avril, maybe a year. The Korean situations, variable. We’re committing resources to things with no near-term return.”

”Yes,” Marvin said.

”Korea,” Sarah Kwan said from her seat. ”The infrastructure question there is very real. We’re doing exceptionally well with Japanese licensing because we have established relationships there, and the market is receptive to Western influence. Korea is different. The domestic industry structure is incredibly rigid. The way artists are developed there through ’agencies’ is vastly different. You can’t apply the American playbook.”

”We’re not going to,” Marvin said, turning his gaze to her. ”We’re going to understand exactly how the machine works there, and we will work within it, not over it.” He let this sit for a moment, allowing the strategic pivot to sink in. ”The Korean Music Team acts are a long-term project. I’m not expecting anything massive from them before 2006, maybe 2008. But the relationships start now. The development investment starts today.”

”That’s patient capital,” Kwan noted, visibly impressed.

”Patient capital is the only kind that builds something truly real,” Marvin replied.

”I’m not objecting. I’m stating it so nobody in this room surprises themselves eighteen months from now when the investment looks like it isn’t working and needs to be explained.”

”None of these are going to look like they’re working,” Marvin said, ”until they suddenly look like they’re working. That’s the nature of development investment. The curve isn’t gradual. It’s flat and then it isn’t.” He looked around the table. ”We don’t measure these against a quarterly return. We measure them against whether the development is happening correctly. If it is, the return comes when it comes.”

Voss, who had been tracking finances in his head, said, ”The personal development elements—the training, the production exposure, the travel for relationship-building—that’s a recurring cost line that needs a budget structure.”

”Build it,” Marvin said. ”Separate line item from the label operating budgets. Call it artist development investment. It sits at the group level, because these artists may not end up on the label they’re currently being developed toward. We want flexibility in how we place them when the time comes.”

Voss made an extensive note.

”One more thing,” Max said. He had been saving this, which was unusual for his typically linear agenda. Reserving it communicated its importance.

”The trainers.”

Marvin’s expression didn’t change, but his posture aligned slightly, like a person waiting for a specific subject to arrive.

”When these artists sign, when the development phases formally begin,” Max said, ”Just as Marvin suggested, I want to set up a framework for physical, mental and wellness support. Not because these are artists with problems. Because they’re young and entering an industry that applies significant pressure. Getting ahead of that is better for them and better for us. Specifically: a personal trainer. A nutritionist. Someone to work on performance endurance, because touring takes a toll people don’t discuss enough. And someone in the wellbeing space—not clinical, just a person who knows how to work with young artists, check in regularly, and spot things that need spotting.”

”Cost structure?” Voss asked.

”Individual contracts per artist, per development phase. Not a retainer for the group. We build a network of people we trust and deploy them when and where they’re needed.”

”The families need to be part of this,” Marvin said. ”Especially with the younger ones. Any wellness framework gets presented to the parents as transparency, not as an add-on to a contract. It is important for their parents to understand that we are distinct and value our artists as much as they value their own children.”

”Agreed,” Max said. ”And it should be framed exactly that way—as something we provide because we believe in taking care of the people we work with, not as something contractually required of the artists. The difference in how that lands matters.”

”It does,” Marvin said.

He sat back slightly. Outside, the evening light had shifted. The specific blue-grey of a New York summer evening pressed against the conference room windows with the indifferent persistence of time.

”These are real people,” Marvin said quietly, not directed at anyone specifically. ”Not in two years or five years. Right now. A fifteen-year-old in London with a guitar. A fourteen-year-old in Ontario who doesn’t know yet what kind of artist she is. An eleven-year-old in Barbados who walked into a competition and stood there like she owned it.”

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