Arista Records Chief David Massey on Måneskin’s Rise and ‘Moving With the Changes’ of an Ever-Evolving Industry
variety.comJem Aswad Senior Music Editor In 2018, when industry vet David Massey was leaving his post at the helm of Island Records and returning to his longtime home at Sony Music, he originally was going to give his label a new name — possibly Work of Art, the name of the Sony-affiliated publishing and management company he also heads up.
But when the possibility arose of relaunching Arista — the label founded by Clive Davis in 1974, now owned by Sony, which famously had a roster that ranged from Barry Manilow and Whitney Houston to Patti Smith — he changed his mind. “A friend had said to me, ‘Your Island is almost like the new Arista,’ which I took as a real compliment, because they had that incredibly eclectic, colorful, vibrant roster, and yet they were smaller and contained and could focus very intensely.
We asked Clive and he was up for it, and it was simple as that.” Smaller is a relative term when you’re talking about a major label, but his Island punched far above its weight: He’d presided over the launch of Shawn Mendes’ career and worked with a roster that ranged from the Killers and Demi Lovato to Bon Jovi and Elton John.
Arista is following a similar template, keeping its staff and roster at around 30 each, with the former focused on A&R, promotion, press and marketing and the latter including Grammy-nominated Italian rock band Måneskin and singer-songwriter J.P.
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