In the wake of the 'Shadows Live at the BBC' fiasco, I was amused to see (elsewhere) someone refer to EMI as 'Every Mistake Imaginable'.
To be fair, I think in general EMI was a brilliant record company and in terms of 'sound' if nothing else, EMI's recordings always sounded incredible. However, certainly where the Shads are concerned, they seemed to make more than one cock up.
For example, I'd love to know how 'Roderigo's Guitar Concerto' got to be released as a single in late '79, when 'Riders in the Sky' was the clear front runner when they put it to the vote during the autumn tour. Let's assume that 'Riders...' wasn't ready at that point (editing, adding syndrums, etc...), then surely 'Parisienne Walkways' or 'Classical Gas' would have been better bets?
Similarly, in early 1980 - after 'Riders...' had been a hit and the Shads had left EMI - why, oh why, did EMI release 'Heart of Glass' as a single? Surely - the at that point unreleased - 'Black is Black' would have been the obvious choice?
Oh well, don't suppose it matters now. I just tend to think that they could have had a couple more top 20 hits under their belts if EMI had acted differently.