Because they can and because they have no leverage over the likes of Bill “Axl Rose” Bailey . . .
The New York Times > Arts > Music > The Most Expensive Album Never Made:
Along the way, [Rose] has racked up more than $13 million in production costs, according to Geffen documents, ranking his unfinished masterpiece as probably the most expensive recording never released. As the production has dragged on, it has revealed one of the music industry’s basic weaknesses: the more record companies rely on proven stars like Mr. Rose, the less it can control them.
It’s a story that applies to the creation of almost every major album. But in the case of “Chinese Democracy,” it has a stark ending: the singer who cast himself as a master of predatory Hollywood in the hit song “Welcome to the Jungle” has come to be known instead as the keeper of the industry’s most notorious white elephant.
$13 million would jumpstart a lot of smaller acts’ careers. Interestingly, GnR still sells plenty of CDs, so it’s not like the label isn’t getting any return on their initial investment (their debut alone sold 26 million copies).
Does anything more clearly underscore the industry’s failed strategy of backing a small stable of superstars instead of working with a more diverse roster of smaller but more reliable acts?