6 ms·

I always thought the age of the internet, especially with modern bandwidths, could be the end of large labels for the music industry (or publishing houses for l

I always thought the age of the internet, especially with modern bandwidths, could be the end of large labels for the music industry (or publishing houses for literature). I understand (to a naive degree) that the labels establish large networks, and complex licensing with public avenues like the radio or concert halls. It is also interesting that that most self published artists get the semi-derogatory term of "Indie-artist", and that there may even be a public opinion which has been molded into expecting a "quality filter" through labels. The question I always come to is how big can you get without a label? and will there ever be a day when artists have full creative control of their craft? This would mean that the artist would need to value and understand business practices, distribution methods, contracting, etc. [edit] and the artists that do appreciate this seem to start labels (see epitaph records or Bad Boy Entertainment)

matchagaucho 10y ago
The "Super Artist" level of entertainment requires an army to support marketing, legal issues, mechanical licensing, PR, tours, accountants, video production, publishing... Only the big labels are prepared to provide this support.
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  Traditionally yes, but the newer Artist-Management dynamic, most successful in Taylor Swift with Big Machine, but also well-respected in the form of Q Prime Management, can do most of those services and retain rights for artists that labels would traditionally take for themselves (e.g. publishing rights, which Q Prime tells their artists to retain). You're definitely not wrong. I think there are cracks in the system though.
- dudifordMann 10y ago
  Great point, even if an artist had 'n' skilled people to facilitate those roles and produce the needed deliverables, what would happen to those people when the artist becomes unpopular? so even if there is no way around having these established entities for the purpose of essentially allowing the artist to create, then is it a matter of reform? which really means not signing to big labels in the hopes that if enough artists do the same that the face of the industry changes? [grammar edit]
  - ancientworldnow 10y ago
    A lot of my work is in music videos. I've got hundreds of millions of views on vevo and even a VMA winning video under my belt. There is almost no one in this industry who works for a single artist. This week, for example, I've got a video coming out from a big artist from a major label, a brand new band a major label decided will be cool, a major YouTube star (top 10 YouTube artist), a tiny artist on a tiny label, and a totally unsigned rapper (busy week). You'd be surprised how close the paychecks for a lot of these are. Point is all of us work with dozens or hundreds of artists because outside of maybe ten mega artists you can't depend on a single "brand" to support you. Granted this applies to video more than other areas, but even agents and managers will have a few to several artists they work with.
oblio 10y ago
> and will there ever be a day when artists have full creative control of their craft? This would mean that the artist would need to value and understand business practices, distribution methods, contracting, etc. Well, probably never. Isn't division of labor one of the main reasons for human advancement? :)
6stringmerc 10y ago
You've done a strong job of describing what I felt years and years ago, and have come to learn is the lay of the land still in the music business. Labels have done a fantastic job of maintaining their gate-keeper status and of being able to break new artists into the mainstream. What didn't change with the internet is, partially kidding here, that 14 year old girls decide what's going to be popular. Outside of that, it's pretty much table scraps. But...there are some exceptions! There are certainly a handful of examples of responding to the last question you pose - re: being independent and achieving mainstream success. The ones that I find the most relevant are CHVRCHES (unsigned, SoundCloud got them attention, eventually had their pick of labels) and Macklemore (independent, used major label distribution services though). Also Skrillex - his label had no interest in his bleep-blonk-screech-BASS DROP tunes and he set it free online and got that avenue going - now he's got his own label and millions in the bank. There are some outlier musicians like Prince who are genuinely contentious with both industry and fan expectations. I think more and more artists who grow up as 'one-person operations' (think Grimes) will navigate a new business platform. Labels will specialize in these artists, or management teams. Eventually though, there does exist a plateau where it seems inevitable to have to deal with a large entity such as LiveNation or Ticketmaster...neither of which are very well regarded as customer friendly in this day and age - at least not as much as direct-to-fan opportunities. The next 10 years should be interesting both in the US and globally. Oh, and in my opinion, artists tend to start labels as a compensation mechanism to get more power for their own business enterprise, and potentially profit from the success of others signed (see: Cash Money / Young Money Records).
- vlunkr 10y ago
  So, you might say the musicians who are more business savvy (they release independently in one way or another) can do well for themselves. The ones who let someone else take care of that stuff get screwed.
  - atom-morgan 10y ago
    That's what I've thought all along. Artists think they can be artists and make money without learning business. As your parent mentioned with someone like Grimes, I think we're starting to see this change.
api 10y ago
What I've seen is that the Internet intensifies the power of gatekeepers in the long run. It overloads people with too many choices, and in choice-overload people fall back to relying on a few filters to tame it down. The information age is numbing. There is too much of everything, so it's all debased. The Internet also flattens everything. You get a market with no barriers anywhere. Power and prestige accrete to the winners due to network effects. Put those two things together and you get an extreme power law market with one or maybe at most two or three winners who own each vertical. I expect Apple Music and Spotify to be the only two "record labels" on Earth here in a few years.
cgh 10y ago
Basically, what's needed is an Image Comics but for music, where the creators maintain control of their works and are paid the lion's share of the profits. Surely there must be a label like this out there.
- hyperliner 10y ago
  Why would a label want to do that? How would the label survive? If the creator's are paid the lion's share of the profits, would they also keep the lion's share of the losses?
  - cgh 10y ago
    Well, Image exists and seems to do okay, and the creators benefit to the extent that they are ditching the Big Two (Marvel and DC) in favour of creator-owned. I'm not sure what the exact revenue split is. Image's books don't get huge marketing pushes or movies either. Re. losses: yes, that's how it works. You do a bunch of work up-front and if it flops, you don't make anything.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
No, "the Internet" just coopted the major label business model.
ukyrgf 10y ago
It's interesting that you call the term indie semi-derogatory, when the article you're commenting on is about how the music industry is full of monsters. Shouldn't operating independently outside of it be celebrated?
nickysielicki 10y ago
> The question I always come to is how big can you get without a label? and will there ever be a day when artists have full creative control of their craft? This would mean that the artist would need to value and understand business practices, distribution methods, contracting, etc. If you're interested in this question, someone to watch closely is Chance the Rapper. He started his music career just over four years ago when he received a 10 day suspension during his senior of highschool for allegedly having marijuana on campus. During those 10 days, he recorded the entirety of his first mixtape, 10-Day, and released it to datpiff.com and had relatively large success. The album was angry at times-- mostly complaining about the suspension, but also very fun and nostalgic. It was a third of Breakfast Club, half Dazed and Confused, and a sixth Ceelo-Green Fuck You. The production was sometimes great and sometimes really lacking, but on the whole it was impressive for an 18 year old with nothing but an old Macbook and 10 days of free time. If I recall correctly, it received something like 10k downloads before his next album, Acid Rap, and that is where he really blew up. It was choir-inspired psychedelic rap with flawless production. It had dark moments talking about Chicago violence and losing friends. It retained the CeeLo-theme of "Screw you, I can do this myself." But this is where he got millions of downloads and became a household name to a sizable portion of 14-28 y/os-- and in only just a bit more than a year since his suspension. At this point he started getting label offers like crazy, and he didn't like it. He saw the wild success he had in all of one year and didn't want to sign a label, and to today he still hasn't. He talks a lot about making a union for up-and-coming music artists. One song he has that talks solely about this can be found here: 'https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/chance-the-rapper-the-social' https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/chance-the-rapper-the... Young black boy, how he got the labels scared? A&R's like, "Chano, you ain't playin' fair! You gon' set a bad example for the average bear You a Yogi, you should idle while in child's position" I be like, naw, these my sons, this prenatal care I'mma show em how to make it here and make it fair Take it there, they could kill me and I ain't gon' care You is just an ankle weight, lighter than some angel cake Sweeter than some maple syrup, easier than Ableton Make a plate and make a player Make em play it Just don't count your sheep before they hatch You chickens 'fore your eggs Eat your dinner 'fore you say your prayer [...] Young tactician, just got my taxes finished Beat the tortoise by a hair in an '04 Ford Taurus On a spare with a wax finish There's a lot of metaphors, you just lack vision You just bad business UH! All your shit been lower case Lower class, lower key I'm the only minor minority in priority Sippin' gin and tonic while I plot upon authority Author of my horoscope, feeling like the oracle Ain't no rules, nigga IGH! Clearly continuing his "Fuck you!" mentality, now aimed at record companies instead of his highschool principal. He's stated that one of his biggest idols as an aspiring Chicago rapper was Kanye West, and as someone who was watching him prior to Acid Rap, it was really fun to see that on West's most recent album he was featured in multiple songs-- still without a label. His dream was realized in a matter of a few years, and I think that clearly shows that mobility is at least possible in this day and age without a label The question is if these platforms (soundcloud, datpiff, genius to an extent) can provide enough value to these artists that a symbiotic relationship is sustainable after they become popular. One of Chance's close friends, Vic Mensa, also came to popularity through soundcloud and datpiff, but he signed with a label soon after. Things worked out for him, too-- he has worked with West and appeared on SNL. Chance is more political and principled and is definitely an outlier-- so these platforms can't rely on artists having that mindset.
j_s 10y ago
Sites like http://noisetrade.com/ http://noisetrade.com/ recognize that the majority of artists' best chance at a steady income is on tour, so they give away the music as promotion.

matchagaucho 10y ago

The "Super Artist" level of entertainment requires an army to support marketing, legal issues, mechanical licensing, PR, tours, accountants, video production, publishing... Only the big labels are prepared to provide this support.

6stringmerc 10y ago
Traditionally yes, but the newer Artist-Management dynamic, most successful in Taylor Swift with Big Machine, but also well-respected in the form of Q Prime Management, can do most of those services and retain rights for artists that labels would traditionally take for themselves (e.g. publishing rights, which Q Prime tells their artists to retain). You're definitely not wrong. I think there are cracks in the system though.
dudifordMann 10y ago
Great point, even if an artist had 'n' skilled people to facilitate those roles and produce the needed deliverables, what would happen to those people when the artist becomes unpopular? so even if there is no way around having these established entities for the purpose of essentially allowing the artist to create, then is it a matter of reform? which really means not signing to big labels in the hopes that if enough artists do the same that the face of the industry changes? [grammar edit]
- ancientworldnow 10y ago
  A lot of my work is in music videos. I've got hundreds of millions of views on vevo and even a VMA winning video under my belt. There is almost no one in this industry who works for a single artist. This week, for example, I've got a video coming out from a big artist from a major label, a brand new band a major label decided will be cool, a major YouTube star (top 10 YouTube artist), a tiny artist on a tiny label, and a totally unsigned rapper (busy week). You'd be surprised how close the paychecks for a lot of these are. Point is all of us work with dozens or hundreds of artists because outside of maybe ten mega artists you can't depend on a single "brand" to support you. Granted this applies to video more than other areas, but even agents and managers will have a few to several artists they work with.

oblio 10y ago

> and will there ever be a day when artists have full creative control of their craft? This would mean that the artist would need to value and understand business practices, distribution methods, contracting, etc. Well, probably never. Isn't division of labor one of the main reasons for human advancement? :)

6stringmerc 10y ago

You've done a strong job of describing what I felt years and years ago, and have come to learn is the lay of the land still in the music business. Labels have done a fantastic job of maintaining their gate-keeper status and of being able to break new artists into the mainstream. What didn't change with the internet is, partially kidding here, that 14 year old girls decide what's going to be popular. Outside of that, it's pretty much table scraps. But...there are some exceptions! There are certainly a handful of examples of responding to the last question you pose - re: being independent and achieving mainstream success. The ones that I find the most relevant are CHVRCHES (unsigned, SoundCloud got them attention, eventually had their pick of labels) and Macklemore (independent, used major label distribution services though). Also Skrillex - his label had no interest in his bleep-blonk-screech-BASS DROP tunes and he set it free online and got that avenue going - now he's got his own label and millions in the bank. There are some outlier musicians like Prince who are genuinely contentious with both industry and fan expectations. I think more and more artists who grow up as 'one-person operations' (think Grimes) will navigate a new business platform. Labels will specialize in these artists, or management teams. Eventually though, there does exist a plateau where it seems inevitable to have to deal with a large entity such as LiveNation or Ticketmaster...neither of which are very well regarded as customer friendly in this day and age - at least not as much as direct-to-fan opportunities. The next 10 years should be interesting both in the US and globally. Oh, and in my opinion, artists tend to start labels as a compensation mechanism to get more power for their own business enterprise, and potentially profit from the success of others signed (see: Cash Money / Young Money Records).

vlunkr 10y ago
So, you might say the musicians who are more business savvy (they release independently in one way or another) can do well for themselves. The ones who let someone else take care of that stuff get screwed.
- atom-morgan 10y ago
  That's what I've thought all along. Artists think they can be artists and make money without learning business. As your parent mentioned with someone like Grimes, I think we're starting to see this change.

api 10y ago

What I've seen is that the Internet intensifies the power of gatekeepers in the long run. It overloads people with too many choices, and in choice-overload people fall back to relying on a few filters to tame it down. The information age is numbing. There is too much of everything, so it's all debased. The Internet also flattens everything. You get a market with no barriers anywhere. Power and prestige accrete to the winners due to network effects. Put those two things together and you get an extreme power law market with one or maybe at most two or three winners who own each vertical. I expect Apple Music and Spotify to be the only two "record labels" on Earth here in a few years.

cgh 10y ago

Basically, what's needed is an Image Comics but for music, where the creators maintain control of their works and are paid the lion's share of the profits. Surely there must be a label like this out there.

hyperliner 10y ago
Why would a label want to do that? How would the label survive? If the creator's are paid the lion's share of the profits, would they also keep the lion's share of the losses?
- cgh 10y ago
  Well, Image exists and seems to do okay, and the creators benefit to the extent that they are ditching the Big Two (Marvel and DC) in favour of creator-owned. I'm not sure what the exact revenue split is. Image's books don't get huge marketing pushes or movies either. Re. losses: yes, that's how it works. You do a bunch of work up-front and if it flops, you don't make anything.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago

No, "the Internet" just coopted the major label business model.

ukyrgf 10y ago

It's interesting that you call the term indie semi-derogatory, when the article you're commenting on is about how the music industry is full of monsters. Shouldn't operating independently outside of it be celebrated?

nickysielicki 10y ago

> The question I always come to is how big can you get without a label? and will there ever be a day when artists have full creative control of their craft? This would mean that the artist would need to value and understand business practices, distribution methods, contracting, etc. If you're interested in this question, someone to watch closely is Chance the Rapper. He started his music career just over four years ago when he received a 10 day suspension during his senior of highschool for allegedly having marijuana on campus. During those 10 days, he recorded the entirety of his first mixtape, 10-Day, and released it to datpiff.com and had relatively large success. The album was angry at times-- mostly complaining about the suspension, but also very fun and nostalgic. It was a third of Breakfast Club, half Dazed and Confused, and a sixth Ceelo-Green Fuck You. The production was sometimes great and sometimes really lacking, but on the whole it was impressive for an 18 year old with nothing but an old Macbook and 10 days of free time. If I recall correctly, it received something like 10k downloads before his next album, Acid Rap, and that is where he really blew up. It was choir-inspired psychedelic rap with flawless production. It had dark moments talking about Chicago violence and losing friends. It retained the CeeLo-theme of "Screw you, I can do this myself." But this is where he got millions of downloads and became a household name to a sizable portion of 14-28 y/os-- and in only just a bit more than a year since his suspension. At this point he started getting label offers like crazy, and he didn't like it. He saw the wild success he had in all of one year and didn't want to sign a label, and to today he still hasn't. He talks a lot about making a union for up-and-coming music artists. One song he has that talks solely about this can be found here: 'https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/chance-the-rapper-the-social' https://soundcloud.com/chancetherapper/chance-the-rapper-the... Young black boy, how he got the labels scared? A&R's like, "Chano, you ain't playin' fair! You gon' set a bad example for the average bear You a Yogi, you should idle while in child's position" I be like, naw, these my sons, this prenatal care I'mma show em how to make it here and make it fair Take it there, they could kill me and I ain't gon' care You is just an ankle weight, lighter than some angel cake Sweeter than some maple syrup, easier than Ableton Make a plate and make a player Make em play it Just don't count your sheep before they hatch You chickens 'fore your eggs Eat your dinner 'fore you say your prayer [...] Young tactician, just got my taxes finished Beat the tortoise by a hair in an '04 Ford Taurus On a spare with a wax finish There's a lot of metaphors, you just lack vision You just bad business UH! All your shit been lower case Lower class, lower key I'm the only minor minority in priority Sippin' gin and tonic while I plot upon authority Author of my horoscope, feeling like the oracle Ain't no rules, nigga IGH! Clearly continuing his "Fuck you!" mentality, now aimed at record companies instead of his highschool principal. He's stated that one of his biggest idols as an aspiring Chicago rapper was Kanye West, and as someone who was watching him prior to Acid Rap, it was really fun to see that on West's most recent album he was featured in multiple songs-- still without a label. His dream was realized in a matter of a few years, and I think that clearly shows that mobility is at least possible in this day and age without a label The question is if these platforms (soundcloud, datpiff, genius to an extent) can provide enough value to these artists that a symbiotic relationship is sustainable after they become popular. One of Chance's close friends, Vic Mensa, also came to popularity through soundcloud and datpiff, but he signed with a label soon after. Things worked out for him, too-- he has worked with West and appeared on SNL. Chance is more political and principled and is definitely an outlier-- so these platforms can't rely on artists having that mindset.

j_s 10y ago

Sites like http://noisetrade.com/ http://noisetrade.com/ recognize that the majority of artists' best chance at a steady income is on tour, so they give away the music as promotion.