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In late July, Jive asserted its market muscle in spectacular fashion as 'N Sync's new album, Celebrity, posted first-week U.S. sales of 1.8 million, the largest first-week total since, well, 'N Sync's previous record. Sales dropped 76% the second week, but Jive executives were still upbeat. "This is a big time for us," says Weiss. "We're in a wonderful place now. As an independent, we don't have the pressure of making quarterly numbers or pressure from shareholders. We don't have to rush out records and make bad decisions just because there's pressure from the top."
The chief architect of the Jive empire is Calder, a 54-year-old millionaire who shuns industry socializing and photo-ops and prefers to operate below the radar of press attention (he declined to be interviewed for this article). Once afflicted with severe allergies, Calder had his quarters in Jive's New York City offices sealed off from the rest of the building and fitted with its own air supply. Jive employees referred to it as "the bunker."
If touches like these have lent him a Howard Hughes-like air of mystery, those who know Calder insist it's a bum rap. "He's very friendly; he just doesn't mix and mingle a lot," says Ajax Scott, editor of London's Music Week. "He has bigger fish to fry." Epic Records executive V.P. David McPherson, who worked at Jive for four years, says, "You can be in a room with a bunch of high-flossing execs and never know he's there. He's soft-spoken but not shy."
When the time comes to go head to head over a boardroom table, Calder is a famously tough poker player. If the deal isn't right, he has been known to let future superstars leave for other labels. Will Smith, Aaliyah and Kid Rock did just that. "Jive is difficult--no, I wouldn't say difficult; they are conservative in deals," says Britney Spears' co-manager, Larry Rudolph. "It's a trade-off you accept going into business with them. You'll get less money up front and fewer points, but I'd rather have that and a hit album than the points and no hit. Their batting average has got to be five or 10 times that of the major labels."
Calder can also be impressively ruthless if necessary. When 'N Sync exited BMG's RCA Records in 1999 over RCA's objections, many observers thought that Calder would not approach the band for fear of alienating BMG, which is Jive's distributor. But Calder did so anyway, plucking the enormously profitable band out of the hands of Sony boss Tommy Mottola and several other eager suitors. 'N Sync's Lance Bass remembers that Calder's personal pitch was powerful. "A lot of people said to us, 'You're screwed; there are 20 million bands just like you.' Clive was the only one who believed in us. Jive stepped up to the table, and we liked them because they're the kings of promotion and marketing."
Calder kicked off his career back in the '60s as a bassist playing Motown covers in Johannesburg bar bands. He never attended college, but he made enough money as a teenage musician to support his family. In the early '70s, with his friend Ralph Simon, a keyboard player who would later join him in founding Zomba (Simon now chairs a wireless entertainment company), Calder branched out into producing local acts, promoting concerts, re-recording Motown hits for the Johannesburg market and sometimes peddling discs by hand, all the while dodging police, who restricted contact between blacks and whites.