Arista Drops Blake

To really no one’s surprise, Arista has dropped Blake Lewis.

Blake confirmed the news that was first reported over the weekend on his MySpace page this morning.

“Ring, ring, ring went the phone. Iain my manager baring the news. Arista isn't
picking up the second option. Meaning, I'm not doin another record with them.
I'm totally fine with this... I was just wishing they would have put the word
out to me over the last couple months, because lets face it..... Waiting
SUCKS!!!! I could have known this 2 months ago, when all of RCA was going
through there changes. Oh well. I guess the right time was now. No biggy. I'm
still with 19 Recordings and I got a tour and new record on the way.

Now
I'll I need is a home for my music. Some place warm and tropical.... seriously
though... Got to be a place where they actually respect my craft and electronic
music. Getting RCA to do remixes for my record was like pulling teeth AND I had
friends do the mixes for next to nothing. They turned out great and are rising
on the Billboard charts.”

As I’ve said before, Arista really gave no love to Blake. If they had released “How Many Words” as the first single, he may have had a fighting chance. It’s almost like they were trying to torpedo his career…

Even though Blake wouldn’t like the comparison, this reminds me of the situation with Taylor Hicks. Taylor made a good CD, but RCA could never get a handle on a single. When he made the promotional rounds, he did “Runaround,” which was not the way to go and then they “responded to the fans” and released “Just to Feel That Way,” which should have been the first single to start with. But since he had already made all of his promotional stops, he didn’t get a chance to hype what should have been a big hit. The label did the same thing with Blake by saddling him with an almost unperformable first single in “Break Anotha.”

The reasoning that some gave for Taylor was that he made enemies at the label by being so difficult. Maybe Blake did the same…