If you ignore KMD, Elektra was reasonably artist friendly back in the day. They were able to sign some bands like the Stooges, MC5, Phish and even Del tha funkee homosapien on that basis. Selling rights over an artist’s objections (especially one as influential as Tom Waits) would have led to a lot more trouble than Frito-Lay would have been worth.

A big part of that era’s music industry was being able to convince musicians they weren’t totally fucked as soon as they signed.