The Cereal List / Get Your Kix!

Hundreds of gay composers–and a few straight composers who write gay music–gathered for a “kiss-in” at the headquarters of New World Records in New York City this past weekend.  Their purpose was to persuade the classical music record label to produce additional installments of Composers Recordings International’s (CRI’s) series of albums celebrating gay and lesbian composers.

In the 1990s, CRI released the compilation albums Gay American Composers and Lesbian American Composers.  CRI went out of business in 2003, and the rights to its recordings were transferred to New World Records.

But some protestors have no faith that New World Records will carry the LGBT torch.  In fact, one group is starting its own grassroots record label, Agenda Recordings, headed by gay composer icon Robert Moran.  According to Moran, Agenda Recordings will “secretly recruit employees of New World and other mainstream labels to pose for semi-nude photographs on the album covers.”

Nobody is immune from the recession, but some are more creative than others.  Take, for example, Innova Recordings: The St. Paul-based record label was struggling to pay its rent or utilities.  After a stimulus request to Governer Pawlenty was turned down, the label was on the verge of being forced to operate out of a shed in the Home Depot parking lot.  That’s when an Innova intern had the idea of expanding the label’s operations beyond contemporary music.

“In these trying economic times, we felt it just wasn’t smart business to focus our energies on a single niche market,” said a representative from the label. “That’s why we’ve decided to branch out into gourmet cat food.”

A majority of contemporary-music economists predicted the label’s cat foods would have considerable trouble getting off the ground.  But they were wrong.  Innova’s clever decision to create bilingual English/French packaging — and their slogan, “We put the et in gourmet“ — was extremely well received by the genteel connoisseur.  And thanks to three feline-loving composers who each committed to purchasing a lifetime supply, Innova’s new venture is thriving beyond expectations.

It’s all over the blogosphere: Naxos of America will be distributing the catalog of New Amsterdam Records. But only The Cereal List managed to get some advanced copies of the refurbished album artwork. Below are three upcoming releases.