It is important to understand that major record labels are not only music businesses, but divisions of media and entertainment corporations that are firstly and foremost out there to make money. An artist for them is like an action figure on a monopoly board. Majors’ intention is not to make someone famous so that their amazing music could be heard, but to bring back gold to the magnates.
Breaking the industry is hard and many upcoming artists see signing for a major label like hitting a gold vein. It guarantees extensive marketing and a safe entry to millions of household radios and TVs. Due to this, the industry has a very influential role in shaping the market products. There is a vicious circle of artists pleasing the industry and the industry offering limited production for the consumers.
On the other hand, majors have always been slow to react to changing trends. More often, it is the independents and underground movements that first introduce a new sound. This contradicts the argument that it is the industry that creates the market.
It will be interesting to see if digitization will see an end to this, as more and more artists are leaving major labels and moving the digital distribution.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
A very well thought out and quite well expressed post.
Your posts are largely well argued and to the point, containing some good analysis. However, you need to be careful with your language which occasionally is clumsy, proof reading before you hit publish will help!
DOB
Post a Comment