Just for the record

Prince, Mariah Carey, George Michael... they've all had problems with their labels. Not so Robbie Williams, who has just signed a deal worth £80m. So, asks Steve Jelbert, what's his secret?

So, at last Robbie Williams has made up his mind over his next record deal. Allegedly, V2, Richard Branson's current venture (and part-owned by Morgan Grenfell, in the present-day way of things in the "music" business) wouldn't go beyond £25m for the signature of the Tommy Steele de nos jours. Universal, whose head, Lucian Grainge, claimed only a few months ago that he'd "give him anything he wants" has clearly changed its definition of "anything", hardly a surprise in the light of the traumas affecting Universal's parent company, Vivendi. For all the talk of Williams pursuing the intriguing alternative of releasing on his own label, with distribution most probably handled by his current hosts, he, or his team of highly qualified advisers, has chosen to take the cash up front (reportedly up to £80m, though if he ever cleared such a sum, you can be certain EMI would have made a lot more).

If I were a cautious EMI shareholder I'd have my doubts. After all, the firm recently wrote off a reported £38m on an ill-fated contract with the erratic Mariah Carey, and the history of such mega-deals is chequered, to say the least. When one major success can literally make the difference between guilt-free expenses claims all round and an unexpected crash, such sums can't be taken lightly. (When U2, for example, were unscheduled to release, or late with, new albums, the ensuing cash-flow problems in effect cost Island, and later Polygram, its independence.) Physically shifting copies for a cut may not be daring, macho business, but there's no real risk involved.

Obviously, this saga has just been an example of brinkmanship, where the jaw-jaw kept going until the crucial need to ship copies of the already-finished Escapology for the Christmas market resulted in a mutually satisfactory deal being struck in time. For celebrating the festive season without Robbie is like forgetting the turkey these days. Understandably, Rob was wary of the independent route. Prince's record sales never recovered from his clumsy divorce from WEA, which resulted in his notorious public appearances with the word "slave" scrawled on his face, and a refusal to answer to the name his parents gave him (the sods). Though his subsequent releases have doubtless proved more profitable (at least proportional to sales), the overwhelming sense of self-importance craved by such figures (or why else would they do it?) can't be enhanced by watching others take their once-hallowed place at the top of the hit parade.

Poor George Michael fared even worse. Hardly renowned for his heavy workload, the swarthy one has paid the price for signing a truly lousy deal when a teenage hopeful in Wham!. By the time he finally escaped its onerous clauses (it really did take that long), he was no longer a guaranteed moneyspinner. Currently, he is opting for one-off deals, in a bid to find the most effective distributor of his music, with unfortunately diminishing returns. When you're hot, you're hot, I guess, and when you're not...

Michael's case was viewed sympathetically by many, though how a middle-class lad, no matter how fame-hungry, managed to evade independent legal advice is something of a mystery to this day.

More pertinently, Williams must be aware that if someone drops a huge sum on you, recouping it then becomes their problem. It's a tactic well known in the less rarefied finances of publishing, where sharp agents like Andrew Wylie and Johnny Geller always go for the largest advances in the certain knowledge that blind fear of losing the lot will keep their clients well served by their imprints.

All these numbers are ridiculous, of course – abstract sums thrown about that might well prove miles from the real figures, much like football transfer fees. (Just this week, a Seventies TV producer who was reminiscing on Channel 4's The Showbiz Set revealed that Lew Grade simply made up the contract figures he gave to the press off the top of his head, just as we had all suspected all along. Though oddly I seem to recall the £20m allegedly handed to Tom Jones appearing in the Guinness Book of Records).

Whatever the truth, EMI certainly considers Williams, a man who has not yet managed to crack the lucrative American market – not even with an album entitled The Ego Has Landed – as worth a huge punt. You could buy a hundred Starsailors for that, and they were overpriced.

Perhaps more significant is the announcement that the original Popstars, Hear'Say, are no more. Such an acceleration of the marketing process is a stunning blow to the industry, not least the stylists, dance teachers and DAT machine operators who also serve. Hell, even the Sex Pistols lasted longer. From pre-sold No 1 hit to the dumpster in what seems like weeks – this could even stop kids dreaming of pop fame. Once Myleene starts turning up to give piano lessons and Danny drops the milk off on their doorstep, singing all the while, their mother's pleas to concentrate on their schoolwork won't seem so hollow. Perhaps a new Robbie has just been set free by their split, but I can't spot one myself.