EMI turning to an outsider for a new spin

Douglas Merrill remembers driving past the Capitol Records Tower at Hollywood and Vine and wishing he could stop in and look around.

Now he's getting an office there, in the West Coast headquarters of EMI Music.

On April 28, Merrill will start his new job as president of digital business at the label that's home to artists such as Coldplay and Norah Jones. His hire, announced last week, surprised many in the technology and music industries.

He's a long-time technologist whose most recent job involved keeping Google Inc.'s systems running. His experience with music involves listening to it. And he couldn't even do that when, as a child, he lost his hearing for three years.

The choice of an industry outsider to address EMI's problems was lauded by some music industry executives and analysts as creative and risk-taking. It struck others as an act of desperation.

Merrill, 37, said he saw the move as a rare opportunity to help change an industry and create something new in a medium he loves.

"Music is so central to people," he said in an interview. "I am super excited to be involved in helping music to figure out its next chapter."

EMI and its peers have struggled with declining revenue, as sales of digital downloads aren't growing fast enough to offset the decline of CD purchases. Terra Firma Capital Partners bought EMI last year for $4 billion, not including debt.

Earlier this year, the London-based music company laid off 1,500 employees, about one-fourth of its workers. EMI employs about 4,500 people today.

Merrill wouldn't discuss the specific challenges facing EMI. But he said he planned to bring with him the experimental spirit embodied at Google. He will report directly to Guy Hands, EMI's chairman and chief executive.

"Douglas is a proven agent of change who combines broad business intellect with a deep engineering background," Hands said in a statement.

As a sign of his willingness to consider bold moves, Merrill held open the possibility that people sharing music online -- an illegal practice that the music industry has fought to stop through lawsuits -- might help some artists during certain parts of their career.

"Maybe a lot of the things we assume are not actually correct," he said.