EMI recently announced it's much anticipated restructuring, during which it will release 2,000 employees. Along with these cuts EMI plans to decrease the size of it's artist roster, consolidating administrative services, and focusing more on A&R.

Overall I am appreciative of the much needed change at EMI Music. With an effective vision for the future of the company Guy Hands and his management team need to be careful to implement the new plan. Focusing their attention on fewer artists will hopefully allow the company to get the greatest return from each of its artists. Combining administrative services such as accounting, business and legal services should help the company reduce overhead. One important note on combining some indirect services: DO NOT CONSOLIDATE MARKETING! Consolidate marketing would undercut any efforts by the individual labels under Warner Music Group to become distinct brands.

Despite the fact that it sucks to be let go, if it's done right EMI can put itself in a place to be one of the most successful of in terms of return on investment. What is important to look at now is Hands's ability to lead the company through the upcoming change.

Regardless of my optimism, the artists don't seem to be as convinced. Since EMI changing hands (no pun intended)  Robbie Williams has expressed his discontents, Radiohead has gone solo (OK maybe this was before the sale of EMI to Terra Firma but still in anticipation of it), and the Rolling Stones are allegedly looking at a deal with Live Nation, similar to their contract with Madonna. Most interesting is these are the artists that one would think would benefit most from EMI's newest artist-centric structure, but they obviously perceived the risk to be too much to be worth the reward of EMI's 3+ year restructuring.