Kiss re-signs with Casablanca/PolyGram Records

On 1. April, 1980, Kiss re-signed with Casablanca Records who had breen acquired by PolyGram Records. The band signed the contracts at PolyGram’s office in New York.

C. K. Lendt
“Since 1977, the company had been half owned by PolyGram Corporation, a Netherlands-based company with a strong international distribution arm. Jeff Franklin, ATI’s chief, brought the Casablanca deal to PolyGram’s New York headquarters; he was a key player in the negotiations. It was a propitious time for Neil Bogart to sell the label, especially since PolyGram was planning a concerted effort to capture the North American market, the largest in the world. Casablanca was then one of the most prominent companies; they could be folded into the already-existing distribution network that PolyGram was putting together, including the Mercury, Polydor, and London labels and some smaller ones as well.
In early 1980, PolyGram completed their buyout. Despite Casablanca’s sales success, it wasn’t a profitable operation, but PolyGram needed a well-known label with a top artist roster. Its reputation for enormous promotions and extravagance was hardly an industry secret. Neil would leave the company and start a new label of his own. An era of major acquisitions of U.S. record companies by foreign corporations had begun.
On the surface, it seemed like nothing more than the usual corporate musical chairs where company ownership changes hands but the business itself pretty much remains the same. New executives come and old ones go. Behindthe-scenes machinations of corporate managers and owners are seldom of interest to artists. But Kiss had a very keen interest in all of this. Their contract with Casablanca had a key man clause with Neil Bogart, a provision extended to only a handful of top artists, who have to bargain hard to get it. Kiss could terminate their contract if the key man left. And the key man had left.
Kiss was in the catbird seat. They had just released a worldwide hit album, Dynasty, which reached the Top Ten in the United States, France, and Germany, on the strength of “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” a single which hit #1 in Holland. Kiss had just finished a marathon U.S. tour which generated millions of dollars of TV, radio, and press coverage. And PolyGram, an international company with a worldwide distribution system, recognized that Kiss was emerging as a top group in many European countries as well as in Japan and Australia. Whatever the financial shortfall of the tour with all of its craziness and waste, Kiss was now able to write their own ticket. On February 14, 1980, Kiss sent a letter to Casablanca in L.A. notifying them that they were leaving the label. Within months, there was a new deal.
“You’ve just made these four boys rich,” was how Kiss’s attorney, Paul Marshall, described their new contract to Howard Marks in a meeting at our offices just prior to the formal signing. Kiss would sign a long-term deal with Phonogram International, the record company subsidiary of PolyGram, in April 1980.”
– “Kiss and Sell: The Making of a Supergroup” by C. K. Lendt.

Paul Stanley:
“A the drama with Peter was unfolding during the first half of 1980, we were also involved in a drama with our record label. Casablanca was absorbed by PolyGram, and for some reason the lawyers of the new company hadn’t checked Casablanca’s contracts with a fine-tooth comb. PolyGram assumed they were buying KISS and Donna Summer along with the label, but we had a “key man” clause, meaning that in our case, the deal was predicated on the presence of Neil Bogart. And from what we heard, the same was true of Donna.
Now, we may have been in some decline after Dynasty if you gauged things by the tour—when we’d had to cancel some shows and witnessed the changing demographics of the audience. But the way PolyGram saw it, Dynasty had been a huge hit, and in addition to making the charts at home, “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” had been our most successful single outside the United States by far, hitting the top ten all across Europe and topping the charts in Australia and New Zealand. The label risked looking like idiots if they let us walk away—which we were entitled to do once they canned Neil. The situation could not have worked out better for us. PolyGram ended up giving us a new and very lucrative deal as a facesaving move. Negotiating a new contract under these disastrous circumstances for them proved extremely advantageous for us.”
– “Face the music: A life exposed” by Paul Stanley

Cash Box news 17. May 1980.

Dale Sherman:
“On February 8, 1980, Polygram took the third option in its grasp as Bogart officially announced his resignation from Casablanca Records & Filmworks. In doing so, Bogart had sold most of his stock in Casablanca to Polygram, establishing the company as the major stockholder. Bogart ended up with a rumored $15 million for his shares, while also retaining a minor interest in the company along with an advisory position in Casablanca and Polygram. As written in the February 23, 1980 issue of BILLBOARD (pages 1, 9 and 66, by John Sippel), Neil Bogart had already set sights on a new career in music with the formation of this company BogArts, which would eventually become Boardwalk. He also joked with Casablanca employees in a letter sent to them on February 13th that he “was still your landlord” since he was one of the principals involved in a combine that owned the five buildings that housed the record company on Sunset Boulevard. Thus, while Bogart may have privately faced misgivings of losing the company he created, to all outward appearances his future were looking bright indeed.”
– “Black diamond: The unauthorized biography of Kiss” by Dale Sherman