Sony 1999 Annual Report Download - page 23

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21
page
Lauryn Hill and her solo debut
album received more Grammy
Award nominations (10) and
awards (5) than any female artist
in history.
INTERNATIONAL GROWTH
SMEI expanded its global network of label affiliations and increased overall sales, in spite of
weakness in Brazil, with global bestsellers and regional successes by CoCo Lee, Harlem Yu, and
the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai soundtrack (Asia); B*Witched, Monica Naranjo, Oasis, and the Dream
Dance 9, Kuschelrock 12, and Notre Dame de Paris projects (Europe); and Ricardo Arjona, ZeZe de
Camargo y Luciano, Roberto Carlos, Chayanne, Elvis Crespo, Alejandro Fernandez, Julio Iglesias,
Ricky Martin, and Shakira (Latin America).
CLASSICAL MOVEMENTS
SMEI benefited from multimillion unit sales of Sony Classical’s Titanic and Back To Titanic
recordings, and strong sales of Charlotte Church’s Voice of an Angel, Abba Pater, Christmas in
Vienna, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Simply Baroque albums. The label’s Shakespeare in Love soundtrack won
the Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score.
MUSIC PUBLISHING
SMEI’s joint venture Sony/ATV Music Publishing acquired the Buddy Kaye catalogue and signed
publishing agreements with Jack Blades, Rick ‘Dutch’ Cousins, Ray Davies, Lara Fabian, Farel
Jean, John Mellencamp, and Dante Ross. Administration agreements were reached for the American
Recordings and Kassner catalogues, and subpublishing agreements for the world outside North
America for the Foreign Imported Production & Publishing, Journey, and UB40 catalogues.
SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT (JAPAN) INC. (SMEJ)
SMEJ celebrated its 30th anniversary in 1998. During the year, sales in Japan were essentially
flat and were negatively impacted by delays in new releases from major artists and weak sales for
previously introduced titles. Operating results deteriorated significantly in Japan primarily be-
cause of weak sales and increased advertising and promotion expenses.
During the year, SMEJ pursued structural reforms to reinforce its core music business. To this
end, SMEJ took actions to strengthen its local artist and repertoire development as well as to
reorganize its sales and distribution operations. As part of these actions, SMEJ is concentrating
on discovering and fostering promising new artists. For this purpose, SMEJ formed a series of
production organizations called “Producers Label,” mainly with talented record producers from
outside SMEJ.
During the year, hits included releases by Ami Suzuki, L’Arc~en~Ciel, and the brilliant green.