Not many people can say they spent their senior year of high school on tour around the world with Humble Pie, turning in a social studies paper about Japan while watching one of the biggest acts of the time play a show. It’s easy to say that may have created a spark for music in Michele Anthony, but keeping the fire going was her own doing – she used it to fuel her all the way to the top of the dominating record label in the world, Universal Music Group.
Anthony was quite literally “born into the music industry.” She toured the world at a young age thanks to her music manager father, Dee Anthony, who was Tony Bennett’s manager at the time Michele was born. “By the time I was a teenager he was bringing over a lot of the British bands to America,” she says. “He was working with people like [famed promoter] Bill Graham, Frank Barsalona, and a lot of great iconic people from the sixties, to help bring over artists like Joe Cocker, Humble Pie, T. Rex, Mott the Hoople, etc. I was literally working his management company by the time I was twelve,” something most middle school kids would kill to have on their resume. Living and breathing the music industry at such an early age, she says it was “just assumed” she would follow the same career path as her father and work in the business.
“The shocker to everyone came when I went away to college and chose to go to law school,” choosing a path that no one would consider the easy one – getting a law degree at the University of Southern California. “I had been hearing through a lot of my father’s artists and through the record companies that there’s this area called ‘music law’ that was developing, so I thought that would be very interesting. ... I came from the position of protecting the artist. So to me, what could be better than becoming an artist lawyer?” With her sights set on her new-found career, it was decided. “That was what I wanted to be.”
The decision to go into law didn’t come with a ‘take your pick’ list of destinations and positions to choose from, much like many career paths. In the late seventies there were only a few music law firms to choose from. “Music law had grown up really around entertainment law and the studios,” she notes. This meant that the few firms that focused on music were all located in Los Angeles. So she followed her passion and moved to the west coast. Unfortunately, the glamour of Hollywood didn’t find its way into the law firms, as she says “in those days there weren’t really business affairs departments, so before you could become an artist lawyer, you sat in the back room and you drafted hundreds if not thousands of agreements. There was no internet then. You did a year or two of that before you were even allowed to get on the phone to negotiate.” The tireless days just added to her work ethic. “It was actually a great training in discipline, as a combination with the other things I’d been exposed to with my family in terms of studio and on the road and the management company. I literally just by evolution became an artist lawyer, and wound up representing scores of incredible bands and artists.” Some of her major clients at the time included Guns N’ Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, and Rick Rubin – an impressive list to say the least.
Just shy of ten years at the firm when she would become a partner, she was met with an unexpected career change. During a meeting with Tommy Mottola – a former CBS Records employee who was now hiring for the newly formed Sony Music – they ended up having a long discussion about management and what the problems had been with CBS Records. Over the course of the conversation the two realized they “were very like minded.” Shortly after, Anthony joined the team at Sony Music.
“I thought to myself ‘okay, I’ll try this – I’m going to learn and I’m going to bring as many artists and clients with me.’ And that’s what I did. I was [at Sony] for seventeen years, [and] became President and COO of that company.” During her long run with Sony, the company broke artists such as Celine Dion and Pearl Jam – just a small part of what was accomplished over her years there.
She parted with Sony after the merger with BMG and went “back to [her] roots of management and consulting” – establishing her own company that serviced clients ranging from Prince to Bjork. She spent several years focusing on building the company, until another business meeting took an interesting turn. She was working on a deal for Pearl Jam with Universal Music Group’s CEO (and last year’s Billboard Power 100 #1) Lucian Grainge. “We started talking about ways that the US company could really be improved in the sense that we had the most incredible labels in the US, all very different personalities, all just best in class at what they do, but...” they needed better management from a corporate standpoint. Grainge and Boyd Muir were looking for someone else to add to the management team “to assist him in managing the labels, but also looking at a lot of the commercial areas around the labels to see how we could create the best resources for our artists and our labels.” Suddenly Anthony had a new set of goals and a new section on her resume.
Anthony with Grainge and Jody Gerson (UMPG).
Since then Anthony has had a rewarding time as Universal’s Executive VP of US Recorded Music. “My day is different everyday,” she says. “Some days it’s dealing immediately with the labels, or an issue at that level. Other days it is attending corporate board meetings, other days it is helping figuring out what we’re doing in the branding and sponsorship area, or going to brand meetings. It’s very varied, but it focuses on the US, although I am part of the executive committee that deals with the strategy and policy of the company [overall]. It’s been a very productive and fulfilling fourteen months.”
While her day-to-day activities may change, one of her main focuses is always communication between the major players in the label group. “My job is to help be a bridge between the management team and the labels, [a bridge between the labels and some of the commercial areas]. It’s very much to help, not just balance the communication, but respect the communication. Make the communication happen.” That includes working closely with Grainge, Myor, and the other top executives at each of the labels such as David Massey of Island Records and Steve Barnett of Capitol Music Group.
With all of the communication necessary, there are bound to be problems that come up – which, luckily, is something that Anthony enjoys dealing with. “I really enjoy problem solving, whether it’s an artist problem, a strategic problem, an employee problem. ... I enjoy deal making. I enjoy working with the labels. That’s the most fun part,” she says.
Being able to take on all the challenges that come with such a senior level position in the world’s most powerful label group is not a job for the faint of heart. A lot of Anthony’s strength seems to stem from her family – both of her parents and even her siblings. Some people may look at gender as an obstacle overcome, but that was not part of her family’s philosophy. Her parents divorced when she was young, and they both individually showed her that being a woman should not stop her from achieving anything. “My mother was out there working at a time when it was not very popular or easy to be a divorced woman with two small children out there working. ... My mother was twenty when she had me – and we both were huge Gloria Steinem fans. My mother was in the work force, so the whole equal pay equal rights amendment ... was empowering.”
Her father set an example by giving her jobs at such a young age despite being a part of the tough music industry. “One of the reasons I was on the road so much at that point in time [was to be able to spend time with my father]. He would just literally pick me up and put me in his pocket and I would just go with him. When you’re on the road, and you’re doing one nighters and ‘okay, lobby call here,’ and I was like ‘little manager’ so I would be helping collect box office at the Fillmore or making sure the marquee sign was right when we were in Australia. Whatever it was, it was just never an issue of me being a girl. It was never – it never factored into it to be honest with you. It was never a conversation, never. It was the absence of it that made it so good. ... I think I said in my remarks at the Billboard luncheon that the Fillmore East and Gloria Steinham were the soundtracks to my teenage years. [laughs]”
Though Anthony had great role models and was able to work her way to the top tier of the music industry, she recognizes it’s not necessarily that way for all other women – it can be challenging to get executive positions. “I think that first of all it’s an issue that’s not just peculiar to the music industry. It’s sadly throughout most industries, and we still have never had a female president – though I have a hunch that that’s about to change – but I think that what is peculiar or unique to the music business is that, particularly if the woman is the primary care giver in the family, the demands of this industry in terms of late nights, unpredictable hours, lots of travel, make it very hard on whoever is the primary caregiver of the family. ... I think some women choose not to be in some of the positions of say A&R or promotion that you do have to be extremely fluid and flexible in your time.” The absence of normal 9-5 jobs, especially in the departments she mentions, make it hard on whoever has responsibility in a family. Universal has a great record of promoting women to higher positions, including Jody Gerson as the CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, as well as other female leaders at Capitol Group and running the sales department. “Lucian and Boyd, I will say, are gender blind,” Anthony notes.
For giving advice to young professionals looking to get into the music industry, her message is clear and simple. “I would say number one: you have to have a real passion to be in the music business. There are just a lot of challenges and opportunities in our business right now.
It’s also very competitive. You have to want to be in this business and love what you do. That leads to the old adage of ‘love your profession and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ That’s really true. You have to find what your calling is.” Anthony’s advice comes not only from her own experience in the industry, but from watching her siblings find joy in what they do. “I have a sister who’s a social worker and she is so passionate about what she does. She started with the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, and she went on to get her social work degree. She’s worked in organizations that work with very severe foster issues, heartbreaking issues, and she just loves what she does. She’s now forty-two years old and has her own kids and is now a social worker at a middle school.
“I have another sister who fell in love with teaching – she did Teach for America when she was at the University of Michigan, and then went on to Columbia to get her doctorate and moved to Washington and was on [a senator’s general council for education]. Now she runs a non-profit called Excellence In Education. I have another sister [who has children] and all she wanted really was to raise these kids. She loves that job. She also works on the side, but that’s her main focus in life. So we’re four sisters and we have very, very different callings in life. That’s why it really starts with what is in your heart. What is your passion? What is your calling? Sometimes it takes a minute to find that.” She also offers the wisdom of “don’t be afraid of making mistakes – don’t be afraid of failing. Try things until you find that which really resonates with you and feels authentic to you.”
It is clear that Anthony has followed her own advice throughout the years, finding her passion in protecting and serving artists, in whatever capacity that may present itself. Looking to the future, she hopes to continue to spend her time at Universal problem solving. “I think a lot about what will best benefit the labels and the artists. So the goals that I have [are] to really provide the right environment, the right resources, the right structures, [and] the right people to let our artists and our labels fulfill their potential. That can be anything from actually getting in there and helping them sign an artist to making sure that the resources that they tap into from direct to consumer to branding to policy department are the best they can be.” Whichever problem arises, there is no doubt that Anthony has the experience – from her teenage years touring and listening to Gloria Steinemm to her years as a lawyer, executive, and manager – and the drive that’s needed to solve it.
This article originally appeared in the fourth issue of Songbird - you can view that here.