Lenny Beer is an American media executive and artist manager. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of ''
HITS Magazine'',
a co-founder and principal of the MGMT Company, and a theater producer and investor.
Early life and education
Beer was born in
the Bronx
The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
. His father, Morton, was a wholesale textiler and his mother Gloria a homemaker. He grew up in the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
suburbs of
Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the ...
,
New Hyde Park and
Great Neck
Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincor ...
. He graduated from
Carnegie Mellon University with a BA in business in 1971, and was awarded an MBA from
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
in 1973.
Career
Beer worked briefly in a marketing capacity for
Clairol
Clairol is the American personal care-product division of company Wella, specializing in hair coloring and hair care. Clairol was founded in 1931 by Americans Joan Gelb and her husband Lawrence M. Gelb, with business partner and lifelong frien ...
after receiving his MBA.
In 1973, he was hired as the chart editor at ''
Record World''. Like ''
Billboard'' and ''
Cashbox'' at the time, ''Record World'' based its charts on subjective data; Beer designed and implemented a system based on market research and piece counts, and created a transparent set of rules and procedures that determined how albums and singles were ranked.
He was promoted to vice president at ''Record World'' before leaving in 1978 to accept a position as vice president of promotion at
20th Century Fox Records.
In late 1978, Beer partnered with Dennis Lavinthal, also a record executive, to form MusicVision, an independent promotion and marketing company. Shortly after the company was founded, Beer and Lavinthal were retained to promote a slate of
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
albums, including
Prince's self titled album, which was his first platinum record, and ''
Van Halen II
''Van Halen II'' is the second studio album by American rock band Van Halen. Released on March 23, 1979, it peaked at number six on the ''Billboard'' 200 and spawned the singles " Dance the Night Away" and " Beautiful Girls". As of 2004, it has s ...
'', the best-selling of all of Van Halen's 12 studio albums. They had similar success with later projects, including the promotional campaign at
Top 40
In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "cont ...
radio for
Bruce Springsteen's "
Dancing in the Dark", which became the biggest hit of Springsteen's career. They worked directly for
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
and Prince, and together managed
Steely Dan founder
Donald Fagen when his 1982 album, ''
The Nightfly
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' was released. The album, Fagen's first solo release, was nominated for seven Grammy Awards, including
Album of the Year.
Beer co-founded the music industry trade magazine ''Hits'' in August 1986 as an irreverent alternative to ''Billboard.'' In a 1990 interview with the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' Beer said: "''Billboard'' is dry. ''Radio & Records'' is very dry. They have terrific statistics and have good hard news. But we all got in the entertainment business because it was fun. And we're the only magazine that conveys the fun factor." The magazine quickly found its niche, and although unavailable on newsstands, it grossed more than $10 million annually in the 1990s. "Equally hilarious and insulting to all willing to read it," ''Hits'' became the industry's most successful trade magazine. Beer has served as editor-in-chief of ''Hits'' since its inception.
He co-founded The MGMT Company with Lavinthal in 2008. Among other artists, they manage the Grammy Award-winning bands
Pentatonix and
A Great Big World,
The Airborne Toxic Event
The Airborne Toxic Event is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 2006. It consists of Mikel Jollett (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Steven Chen (guitar, keyboards), Adrian Rodriguez (electric bass, backing vocals), Daren Ta ...
and
Eagles of Death Metal
Eagles of Death Metal is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, formed in 1998. Founded by Jesse Hughes (vocals, guitar) and Josh Homme (drums), the band also includes a wide range of other musicians who perform both on the band' ...
.
Beer invests in and produces theater productions. He was a producer of
Suzan-Lori Parks
Suzan-Lori Parks (born May 10, 1963) is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her 2001 play ''Topdog/Underdog'' won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for d ...
' ''
Topdog/Underdog
''Topdog/Underdog'' is a play by American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks which premiered in 2001 off-Broadway in New York City. The next year it opened on Broadway, at the Ambassador Theatre, where it played for several months. In 2002, Parks rece ...
,'' which won the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were a ...
(2002) and received a Tony nomination for
Best Play. He also served as a producer on the 2015 Broadway musical based on the 1992 film ''
Honeymoon in Vegas
''Honeymoon in Vegas'' is a 1992 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Andrew Bergman and starring James Caan, Nicolas Cage and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Plot
Private Detective ("Private eye") Jack Singer (Nicolas Cage) swore to hi ...
.''
From 2003 until 2016, Beer was an instructor for the
UCLA Extension
UCLA Extension is a public continuing education institution headquartered in Westwood, Los Angeles, on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. Classes are held at UCLA, in Downtown Los Angeles, and other locations throughout L ...
course, ''The Music Business Now: How It Really Works''. He has been a guest speaker at
USC and the
Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music
The New York University Tisch School of the Arts (commonly referred to as Tisch) is the performing, cinematic and media arts school of New York University.
Founded on August 17, 1965, Tisch is a training ground for artists, scholars of the a ...
at NYU and served as a member of the Grammy screening committee for six years. "Widely considered one of the most knowledgeable people in the music industry,"
he frequently provides commentary for publications including the ''New York Times''. He was featured in a
Frontline
Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield.
Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to:
Books and publications
* ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant
* ''Frontlines ...
documentary on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
titled ''The Way the Music Died.''
Personal life
Beer and his wife, Susan (Suzi) Dietz, live in
Sherman Oaks
Sherman Oaks is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California located in the San Fernando Valley, founded in 1927. The neighborhood includes a portion of the Santa Monica Mountains, which gives Sherman Oaks a lower population density than ...
, California. They have two children, Jesse and Sofee. Dietz, a theater producer, has been nominated for five Tony awards.
[Miller Daryl H. "Arts & Entertainment," Daily News of Los Angeles (CA), July 06, 1991: L20, accessed April 25, 2018]
References
External links
* http://hitsdailydouble.com/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beer, Lenny
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
American editors
New York University alumni
Carnegie Mellon University alumni
American music people
People from the Bronx
American music managers