Lady Gaga's Management Blues

This article is more than 2 years old.

It’s been reported that Lady Gaga, a performer seemingly at the height of her powers, has fired her longtime manager Troy Carter in a move that has many in the industry scratching their heads. Carter and his management company Atom Factory have been in charge of Gaga’s career since 2007 and are largely responsible for putting her in position to become the superstar that she is, and even more importantly, being able to financially take advantage of it.

English: Lady Gaga and Monster announce Projec...

Lady Gaga (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There’s been no reason given for the split, but an artist/manager divorce usually comes down to one of three reasons; the artist isn’t making enough money, the artist is being asked to do something he or she feels compromises some artistic or personal integrity in order to make more money, or the artist feels slighted because the manager takes on a new client.

Gaga’s making plenty of money (she reportedly made $80 million last year alone, topping Forbes list of most powerful musicians), so that’s an unlikely scenario. The other major star in the Atom Factory stable is John Legend, but he isn’t a new signing, so that doesn't seem to be a conflict.

That said, Carter does have a new label venture with Capitol Music Group involving two new acts, Basic Vacation and The Ceremonies, the later who will have an EP released on November 19th. The label (Atom Factory Music) is said to be a hybrid record label in that it uses Capitol more for their radio promotion, with the rest of the marketing occurring in-house at Atom Factory, which would require more hands-on involvement than in a normal artist-manager-label relationship. This could have been something that competed for the superstar’s attention.

Then there’s the fact that Carter has been a very active investor in the LA tech scene, and could have taken his eye off the Gaga ball while embracing a startup, which would be essentially the same thing as paying too much attention to a new client.

In the end, it’s likely that it all comes down to the age-old “creative differences,” the same thing that has haunted creatives and visionaries probably since the beginning of time. Or any combination of the three.

Regardless of the reason, the split comes at a critical financial time in Gaga’s career, since so much seems to be resting on this album that any misstep could hurt her future ability to make big sponsorship deals. That’s why the timing is so bad for this breakup; just getting a new manager up to speed could keep Gaga from maximizing any of the deals currently in place.

With her new album ARTPOP dropping yesterday, the publicity and promotion machine has been unleashed, with a live concert on Vevo called ArtRave kicking it all off and the release of an ARTPOP Android and iPhone app following it up. You’ve heard her “Applause” on Kia commercials for the last month or so, and her track “Aura” was the opening song in the movie Machete Kills (in which she also co-starred) and is expected to get huge push with a major sponsor when it’s released.

Lady Gaga is still a huge money maker in the music industry and there’s no doubt that will continue at least on some level as long as she cranks out the hits she’s been noted for. The artist keeps pushing the edge fashion-wise and artistically, and that will keep her in the news and keep her visibility high. There’s been artists like this in the past, but not all of them were able to cash in from their celebrity when they were on top (David Bowie comes to mind), which is why good strong management is so important. Troy Carter has proven to be adept at maximizing Gaga’s worth. Will her next manager be as skillful?
