Your Favorite Rapper is Poor: Cashing In on Whitney Houston’s Death

(Warner Bros. is pretty stoked about "Bodyguard" DVD sales right about now too.)

Weekend Edition: The best of the past week on RefinedHype, running from Saturday to Monday morning.

I know, I know, it's been way too long since I've written a "Your Favorite Rapper is Poor" article; RefinedHype's ongoing series examining the hidden finances of the music business. There's really no explanation other than they require a legitimate amount of work (aka me actually knowing what the fuck I'm talking about), and I'm lazy. But I'm feeling inspired by Whitney Houston, so here we go....

They'll of course never admit it, but executives at Sony had been waiting a long time for the call that Whitney Houston was dead. When famous artists die there's a huge rush to buy their previous work, a rush that the labels can cash in handily. For example, one of Universal Republic's best selling-albums last year was Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black", which originally dropped in 2006 but shot back into the top ten after Winehouse's death.

Which I guess makes for a perfect parallel to Sony's relationship with Whitney. It'd been a full decade since Whitney had put out a true solo album - Bobby Brown and crack are not exactly recipes for productivity - and there was no indication she'd ever regain her chart-topping ways. In purely monetary terms, and of course the labels are in the business of making money, she was dead weight (pun intended) to them until she died.

So I'm not saying Sony did a dance of joy when they heard Houston had overdosed in a Los Angeles hotel...maybe it was more like a somber jig. One thing's for sure, they weren't caught off guard. Just hours after her death, the price of Houston's "The Ultimate Collection" and "Greatest Hits" albums had jumped from approximately $8 to $12 in anticipation of a buying frenzy. In other words, they had a "this is what we do as soon as Whitney dies" plan in place, and they executed that plan.



Now public outrage over the price hike forced Sony to stumble a little bit, they blamed it on a single employee acting alone, a lie so ridiculous it literally made me laugh out loud.

Yep, that's exactly what happened:

Employee: "Hey, why don't we raise the price on these Whitney Houston albums?"
Boss: "Absolutely not. Sure we'd make a ton of money, but this isn't about money. This is about honoring an artist and a human being."
Employee: "Fuck you - I'm doing it anyway, even though I'll get fired and I'll make absolutely no extra money from it."
Boss: "Nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Regardless, some exec just bought a new vacation home in Ibiza thanks to Whitney's addition. From Billboard:

"Houston's untimely death sent two Arista/Sony Music Entertainment compilations back into the top 40, "The Greatest Hits" at No. 7 and "The Essential" at No. 40. Three of her classic hits made the singles top 40, with nine more inside the top 75. "I Will Always Love You" led the line at No. 14, then "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" at No. 20 and "One Moment In Time" at No. 40. "My Love Is Your Love" reappeared at No. 42, "I Have Nothing" No. 44, "How Will I Know" No. 56, "The Greatest Love of All" No. 58, "Saving All My Love For You" No. 59, "It's Not Right But It's Okay" No. 61, "Million Dollar Bill" No. 62, "Run To You" No. 67 and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" No. 74. Houston's album catalog sold 73,000 and her singles 127,000, and her 1992 movie "The Bodyguard" also re-entered the OCC's video chart (which includes DVD, Blu Ray and other sales) at No. 9."

And they haven't even put out the inevitable new "Greatest Hits" album yet, which will of course look like a transparent attempt at cashing in even further, and will of course sell a ton of copies because...I don't know...people apparently just buy shit for reasons I don't really understand.

So while the major labels continue to bleed profit margins and watch their business model collapse, at least they'll always be able to count on a tragic celebrity death to bolster sales. I know I'm jaded, but if you don't think there's some Sony/ATV exec who curses every time a seemingly healthy Paul McCartney performs, then I know you're naive.

See Also: Your Favorite Rapper is Poor: 3 Ballers Who Are Really Broke