On the Couch - #109 - MEX in conversation with Marc Marot

To date, acts Marc discovered or managed have notched up 38 Top 10 singles, including 18 #1 singles in the UK charts. 

He has been responsible for over a million album sales in one form or another, including his ten years of direct international responsibility for U2's marketing and sales.

Marc Marot began his professional career in 1982 as the 'Professional Manager' of UK Independent music publisher, Eaton Music ltd, working with film composers George Fenton, Carl Davis and Henry Mancini and pop groups including Status Quo.
He was appointed Managing Director of Chris Blackwell's Blue Mountain Music in 1984, working with U2 and the reggae catalogue.
Marc's publishing signings include, amongst many others, Massive Attack, De La Soul, Julia Fordham, and Shakespeare's Sister (Marcy Levy).
He headed every division of Island until Marc was appointed MD of Island Records in 1990, the youngest MD in the UK music industry at the time.

Amongst the artists signed and developed by his team while at Island Records were:

            • Pulp

         • PJ Harvey

         • The Stereo MCs

         • P.M. Dawn

         • The Cranberries

         • Elbow

         • Chaka Demus and Pliers

         • NWA

         • The Orb

         • Ice Cube

         • Talvin Singh

         • Tricky

         • Nine Inch Nails
During his tenure as Island Records MD, Island artists won the prestigious Mercury Music Record of the Year prize three times and 10 Island short-listed albums. Artists signed during the period have subsequently gone on to win 25% of all the prizes awarded in the 20-year history of the competition.
He guided U2's career throughout the 1990s, from the release of Achtung Baby to just before the release of All You Can't Leave Behind, selling close to 60 million albums.

In 1998 he introduced Bono to the concept of Third World debt relief via his involvement in the 'Jubilee 2000' campaign. He oversaw the 'drop the debt' initiative within the music industry. Bono has thanked him on both the stage of the MTV awards and whilst addressing the UN council chamber in New York.