Yet music, says America’s 26th richest man, is the art form that means most to him. “I’ve never gotten to the point of seeing the beauty in words,” he says. His preference for melody over lyrics is such that though he bid for both Warner Music and EMI in the past two years, he had no interest in the publishing arms that represent songwriters. “I would love to own a record company one day just because I think it would be so much fun,” he says, “but I don’t know what’s left.”
Our starters arrive. Perelman’s bowl of baby lettuces and radicchio is decorated with a green smear I assume is dressing. In my bowl, three crisp fingertip-length sections of what must have been a small frog’s thigh are arranged with small cubes of melon. Two dark, round leaves float up as the waiter pours in the pale green soup, like tiny (frogless) lily pads.
Some in the record industry dismiss Perelman as a trophy hunter dazzled by rock stars. He says he was “emotionally attached” to the idea of buying Parlophone, the EMI label sold this year to Warner’s Len Blavatnik, but he remained realistic enough about music business economics to have bid lowly earnings multiples. Music will always be in demand, he says, because “it’s background while we eat, it’s a way to dance, it’s a way to make love”.