Just wanted to start a discussion regarding record labels. Obviously, in light of the current music business scene, the role of the record label has morphed quite a bit. I’m just curious what the purpose is of the smaller record labels at this point? As an artist/band, it is far easier to get distribution on your own at this point. Are you really gaining much in teaming up with a small label, or forming one for that matter?
I think many who sing and write think they can’t record, or get to their first DAW and withDAW (sic)
And those who can record think they know nothing about marketing ort getting airplay.
Other than taht ???
I think there is if you are team up with the right label. You’re gaining access to their financial resources and their marketing/promo infrastructure. The smaller ones can blur the line between a management company, a booking agency, and a ‘label’. They’re all rolled into one at the lower levels.
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Promotion. That is a record company’s main function.
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Costs of production are covered, with cheap/at cost sales to the band for the merch table
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The record company should be able to use their network to get you gigs/festivals.
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Publishing. Many record companies want the publishing as well as the master rights. If it’s a condition of the contract, there’s not a lot you can do about it, but the advantage is that they will work a bit harder for you if they have publishing income as well as royalties.
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An advance of both royalties and publishing.
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I you’re a ‘signed’ act, it’s a whole lot easier to get gigs/festivals, interviews, reviews etc.
I know self-distribution is technically possible, but what is the point if you don’t ave the promotion to go with it?
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Experience. If they are doing a good job a small record label would be able to help their artists to miss some of the pitfalls. Facilitating. They also should have access to things that it make take a while for an artist to find and therefore help them to get things done faster and more efficiently.
I have a few buddies that are on or run small labels.
It’s exactly the sorts of things Redworks, and AJ mentioned:
Being on a label lends you some credibility and allows you access to a collected knowledge base and set of connections you wouldn’t have otherwise. Some lend financial help and others don’t.
Some labels have a certain je ne sasi quoi that says “if you like a type of thing, you’ll like all these things.” Some just exude cool. Some say “this is cool.” Some say “we only do weird.”
In talking to my friends, it seems like the biggest benefits have been in the connections and credibility departments.
My question would be if it is not lending financial help, is it really a label?
There probably isn’t much point in defining semantics until the label of whatever the hell it is, is big enough to where the differences matter to the industry and to the government. But I think of labels as money + whatever else.
If its just a group of guys self financing their own records like thousands of these rap music jokers, then its more of a team, or a guild, or a group, or a union or something like that. I would reserve the term label for financing, even if its one guy in a house training his recording expertise for the rights to something that belongs to the artist.
I think as long as that small label has a large group of followers, sucessfull acts already and links to airplay etc then it can be good.
However, social media and youtube are free and accessable to many more people.
Why commit your music royalties to someone when you can get just as good exposure on the internet.
If they are willing to invest in you with gear and album sales and studio time them fair enough.
But if they just want to play at being a record company and are looking for talent to get themselves noticed then walk away
This is part of what triggered this topic for me. I’ve noticed the surge of artists and bands doing this sort of thing, and I just wonder what they think they are gaining other than being able to tell people that they are “on a label”
If all a label was good for was financial help, then no. It’s nothing if it’s not offering you financial help.
But, if a label is good leverage or has a person capable of helping you get a string of tour dates together in the oh-so-rocky and sporatic independent music scenes in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas areas, the label who doesn’t give you any money might have just put your music in front of a bunch of people hungry for you and paid for the agreement you enter into many times over.
As long as their give is worth your give, then it’s all good. If they take 25% of your album sales from their website and 5% of sales elsewhere but design the packaging, pay 10% of the cost of duplication, and throw you a bonkers release show while giving you a list of venues with places to crash after you play then it seems like a pretty good deal.
It’s all about the agreement. If you feel like the agreement is worth it, then it’s worth it. I don’t need a label to pay for my recording. I can make a record. I don’t need a label to pay for my duplication, I’ve got buddies who owe me favors. What I DON’T have, though, is stage time on a couple punk rock festivals, a trustworthy mechanic, and a proven marketing strategy that works for punk rock. Those things are as valuable as money to me.
You’re in the minority then. See my list above.
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Again, see my my list in post #4. Self release is self release, it is not being signed to a label. The difference is that a label has some degree of reputation, respect and ‘clout’ within the industry.
[quote=“LazyE, post:8, topic:1631”]
Why commit your music royalties to someone when you can get just as good exposure on the internet. [/quote]
Because 50% of a watermelon is better than 100% of a grape. The question is are they actually holding a watermelon?
This isn’t just labels. People wanting to play ‘business’ can be found in just about any profession…sadly enough.
Perhaps they feel that they’re collaborating and building networks. Which in and of itself is not a bad thing. Maybe they are. Weather its a legit business or a smoke screen…that all comes down to money.
Don’t you think you’re better of brokering a management or PR/promotion agreement with a company like this? It would differ the assets that are traded. A label should go after IP rights, as they’re usually better positioned to repurpose and license material than a management agency would be. A management agency however, would probably opt for owner equity in the form of stock shares of the LLC, (which is attached to the companies EIN), in addition to a percentage of cash pr procured work contracts.
Stock shares would be largely useless record label unless the band has collateral assets the label wants signed over as a lean against their artist advance. In short, managers want equity, labels want rights. Booking agents get neither, and at a certain point as the company grows, the three responsibilities must outsourced to different groups. Its a legal ethics violation in the United States for the same company to do all 3, and becomes even more complicated if the artist, management, and booking agencies are incorporated in New York, or California.
Not if the other half of the watermelon gets remixed, sold to adverts and things you don’t aggree with, forces you to become some other fruit?! Invests its entire watermelon into someone elses lunch without letting you have any at all!
Oh and 50%… more like 10-20%
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Based on? He may be, but it’d be interesting to hear why you think that.
Haha! Love it. Too funny. You could have probably counter argued that large portions of the watermelon are inedible anyway unless you’re a pig or a goat.
…I guess most importantly, some people just like grapes better than they like watermelon. To each his own 
That can only be based on AJ’s definition of a label. But I won’t contest there’s a correct definition of a label. If I were to guess (based on past dialogue), AJ might say a promo/sales and distribution network that does not bankroll a single project is still a label.
WMG, the ‘Warner Music Group’ distributes all Disney music, and handles all licensing and royalty affairs on their behalf. But they don’t front money to Disney. They not only make Disney pay to produce their own music, they bill them for promoting and distributing it.
This is going to come down to semantics. I would distinguish Warners services to Disney in a different capacity than a ‘record label’, but still call Warner as a whole, a label. No correct and incorrect here.
@holster, I know your question was about SMALL record labels…I really don’t have much to go off of than my knowledge and research about the big major ones. I would suspect quite a few things are different at the amateur and street level though.
Here’s one thing I didn’t think about though - to add to that.
Small labels may add just enough credibility to tip the scale in helping a band get endorsements and gear sponsorships. If a label has a highly professional website, that clearly features an artist as their own, and the artists website shows a highly active tour itinerary, with a well written bio, this could make or break a full sponsorship vs a B-level endorsement like one I recieved from Roland. If I had waited six more months until I had a pro tour lined up and all the dates were confirmed, I could have gone after a REAL sponsorship from Korg/Marshall/Vox which would have been much better, because I was with a signed band, riding around in a Prevost tour bus, and playing in decent sized venues.
Here’s the difference - as far as Roland is concerned:
B level endorsement - you get gear 10% below wholesale
A level endorsement - you get gear 10% below that
Sponsorship - Roland sends you free gear, and begs you to play it
You’d think the 3rd would be better, but there are a LOT of strings attached to that sometimes.
The number of small record labels and the number of acts signed to them.
The Internet is allabout traffic, not exposure. If you can get the same traffic as a record company, the chances are you don’t need one.
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No, it comes down to end results.