And yet it’s strange, with his track record and reputation of someone that’s ‘difficult’ to work with, Capitol music still bought and initially planned to release Bonfire, even with their knowledge of his falling out with Harvest which is owned by Capitol music.
The harvest matter is one thing, but the Miley stuff is quite another. I think there's a world that exists in which Capitol would have been willing to go along with all of it (including the rereleases of the Quarry Era, World Peace etc, had Moz not made some premature announcements and promotions that (according to the leaked emails, he was explicitly told not to). That would certainly affect my desire to continue to do business with him, were I a record company.
To me, all of this is a real red Herring at this point. He has the rights to all of his unreleased music at this point, including bonfire and world peace, and without music, and whatever current album seems to be working on with Carmen and company
. If he doesn't want to self-release, fine. but I find it impossible to believe he is doing everything in his power to find a new home for it it. that would require him to do more things like this interview (preferably live and in person not over email so that interviewers and journalists act ask meaningful follow-up questions, ask for corroboration for some of the claims, who else might have been in meetings where all these labels were allegedly extolling the virtues of bonfire, but regardless it really doesn't matter what capital did or did not do at the moment.
His focus should be on finding a distribution partner for it, even if that means going to the daily wire or some other nontraditional outlet to see what kind of "maverick" deal he can find forget about Capitol, talk about the music, why it makes you proud, what specifically the recorded artists brought to the album that none of your other lineups have before, what the songwriting process was, how it might've differed from dog in a chain or any of the other previous efforts. There's so much he could talk about in terms artistic virtues and merit of the album without continuing this culture war crusade for "free speech."
Free speech means that the government ought not suppress things, it does not mean that a record company should be morally or legally forced to release are anyone else's record, regardless of initial interest etc. if they have trepidations, either stemming from your conduct or from further reflection about the content or about its commercial viability. The freedom to associate, or not, is a core underlying principle of free speech.
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