Recording Industry

Is some of the same magic that's made the "Titanic" album the biggest-selling collection of score music ever also contained in Fox-TV's hit series "Ally McBeal"? The folks at Sony Music--which released the "Titanic" album--are banking a good chunk of cash on it.

Interscope Records has struck a domestic distribution agreement with the 3-year-old Almo Sounds label, supplanting Almo's former deal with Geffen Records. Interscope is half-owned by Seagram's Universal Music Group; Geffen Records is fully owned by Universal. Almo will integrate its marketing and promotional operations with Interscope, but will also add a regional promotions department and publicist in-house.

More changes are expected at PolyGram in the weeks ahead, sources said. The Dutch-owned corporation is likely to restructure its Polydor music label, leaving the catalog and artists under its A&M sector while moving Elton John's Rocket label over to its Island Group division. PolyGram executive Johnny Barbis is expected to return to New York to assume a presidency post at Island Records, where he will work for Davitt Sigerson, who could be installed as Island chairman as early as this week.

It's standard procedure in country music. It used to be the norm in pop and rock 'n' roll too: singers doing songs by other writers. In rock today, though, especially on the alternative edges, artists are pretty much expected to come to the table with both singer and songwriter on their applications. It's been that way since Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell established the complete auteur as the industry standard in the '60s. That's why it's surprising that U.S.

Mammoth Records, a division of Walt Disney Co., is about to sign a joint-venture label deal with the Dust Brothers, the production whizzes who have churned out hits for such rap and rock acts as Beck, Tone Loc and Hansen.

Atlantic Records, which finished first among record labels last year with an 8.1% market share, has restructured its marketing department in an effort to "leave no stone unturned in marketing our artists," said Ron Shapiro, Atlantic executive vice president and general manager. Shapiro said the increasingly competitive music marketplace and the fragmentation of traditional media such as television and radio prompted the move.

When you are named vice president of Led Zeppelin's record company at age 24, you know you are on a fast track in the pop music world. Since those heady days in the mid-'70s, Danny Goldberg has lived up to the promise by assembling one of the most impressive resumes in the music business. As a partner in Gold Mountain Management from 1984 to 1992, Goldberg helped guide the careers of such celebrated artists as Bonnie Raitt and Nirvana.

General Categories * Record of the Year: "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?," Paula Cole (Cole, producer); "Sunny Came Home," Shawn Colvin (John Leventhal, producer); "Everyday Is a Winding Road," Sheryl Crow (Crow, producer); "MMMBop," Hanson (the Dust Brothers, producers); "I Believe I Can Fly," R. Kelly (Kelly, producer).

To what proportion the classical Grammy nominations mirror popular taste, the concerns of collectors or the interests of the music business is hard to figure out. For instance, the three conductors who have loomed largest in Grammy lore--Georg Solti, Pierre Boulez and Robert Shaw--have practically nothing in common. But all are again prominent nominees this year.