V2 Records has been “restructured.” Its parent company, Sheridan Square, fired V2’s 35 employees on January 12 and “will no longer issue new music” other than gospel. It will retain V2’s catalog which includes albums by the White Stripes, Grandaddy, Isobel Campbell, Jim White, Moby, Mercury Rev, and the Raconteurs.
V2 Records was started in 1996 by Richard Branson after he sold his Virign Records to EMI for a billion dollars. In November, 2005, Branson sold V2 “to create a relationship that keeps the V2 imprint in business.” Huh. Kept it in business for just over a year. Nice.
Think Branson will start a new label called V3? And what’s going to happen with the new Mooney Suzuki album, Have Mercy, that was supposed to be released on January 30?
If the last Mooney Suzuki didn’t sell what the label projected, the new album probably won’t be released and the band will be dropped. It also means, in all likelihood, that those other acts no longer have a deal, either. (Not that Moby or The White Stripes, among others, will be fretting over it.)
As for the V2 imprint, the new owners might keep it alive in name only–in other words, the records from that catalog will have the V2 logo on the cover–just like Universal does with titles formerly on A&M, Geffen, etc. even though it’s actually Interscope putting it out.