Are Record Labels Necessary?

photo cred

This is a question that I've been asking myself a lot lately. It seems clear that musicians have more access than ever before to all of the resources that record labels traditionally offer (distribution, marketing, recording facilities, design, replication). But for some reason when you look at the CMJ Charts, the new releases in Rolling Stone and Spin, on "subculture" magazines like Fader or Vice, or even in most high profile blogs and websites (Pitchfork, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan) they are still filled almost exclusively with "signed" bands. When a band like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah blows up with a self release it makes headlines that repetitively trumpet the "liberation of the artist in the internet age," yet these are still headline-worthy events rather than standard occurrences. Also artists like Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Jill Sobule do really well with their fan-funded projects, but what is rarely mentioned is that all of these artists had the enormous help of record labels in developing their brands and cultivating their fame. Now they are able to capitalize on all of that but it still puts the record label at the core of artist viability. In this article I'm going to try and parse the continued relevance of the Record Label from the habitual reliance on it as a model for success. I believe that ultimately labels will start to look really different, and I think that figuring out why they still exist at all will help us develop a better model that connects musicians to the future of the music industry rather than the past.

(Full Disclosure: I'm working on developing a new model for my own label, but I'm writing this as a self-releasing artist, which I always have been)

PART 1

So let's start out with what record labels do, and how that has changed because of digital technology...

Distribution:
What Labels Do: Record Labels traditionally connect artists with merchants and locations in which to sell their music both online and in stores.

Why we don't need it: Tunecore.com has basically blown this wide open with a flat fee for worldwide distribution. Within 24 hours an mp3 you record in your bedroom can be purchased on itunes around the world. So while getting your music in a Record Store is still difficult, it is increasingly irrelevant. Almost all young people discover music exclusively online, and so easy access to Digital Distribution has now made this once essential function of the label largely optional.

Marketing:
What Labels Do: Labels are able to offer capital for print ads, professionally designed marketing campaigns, branding and social media outreach.

Do we need that? Well, through social networking one could make an argument that you have all you need to promote a release but unless you already have a large committed networked fan base or a viral video you will still need to spend some money on marketing. This is why most musicians are wisely turning to making videos as promotion. Most "Indie PR" firms seem largely ineffectual from my end, and since they are pay to play rather than "curated" like labels, they don't seem to carry very much influence.

Recording Facilities:
What Labels Do: Labels have access to established producers and studios that are able to produce consistently high quality recordings. These resources help recreate the aesthetics of recorded sound that artists and labels have codified through decades of experience. In other words they can make records that sound like what people are used to hearing. Labels also are able to hire professional mixing and mastering engineers that make a huge difference in the final product.

What do we have: High Quality Recording technology is available for extremely cheap which means there are thousands of talented producers that have very humble resources but, with practice, can produce a product indistinguishable (by a mass audience) from a professionally produced recording. Mastering and mixing are also getting cheaper and easier though no less important.

Videos and Visual Design:
What Labels have: Labels may have established relationships with designers and artists that help design artwork, produce videos, design web sties, and style photoshoots. Most importantly Labels have capital to hire all of these people.

What we have: All of this has become more accessible through computers, cheap camera technology, and wonderful sites like cashmusic.org. Though creating something visually iconic, viral, and/or brilliant is still a high art that requires some resources.

Replication:
What Labels Have: Traditionally labels were able to print massive quantities of recordings for mass consumption.

What we have: There are dozens of replication facilities that will produce as few or as many CDs or vinyl as you like. Ulitmately though the CD making businesses seem to be in trouble. They got a big boost as artists starting self-releasing but I can't see indie artists shelling out for printed CDs for much longer.

Licensing and Placement:
What Labels Have: Relationships with music supervisors, film studios, and ad agencies is one of the most important things that labels have and are working very hard to maintain. These institutions and individuals have become de-facto tastemakers for indie music. Getting your song placed on Grey's Anatomy, or an iPod commercial (Chairlift) has become the new way to "be discovered."

What we have: There are sites popping up that offer artists a chance to get licensing opportunities, but I'm not sure how well these work. I'd love to hear anecdotal evidence in the comments. My sense is that a lot of music supervisors read blogs and are constantly on the look out for "it" bands of the moment. I'm sure there are areas of licensing that are democratic, but it also really depends on who you know. If I were a music supervisor I wouldn't necessarily want to use a site where uncurated acts submit there music for a fee. It's easier to find music I like on blogs. This area seems to be where labels still might have sustainable clout.

Tour Support and Booking:
What labels have: Here's an example of the mystical power of a label. A booking agency is very unlikely to take on a totally independent act without the support of a label. But the minute you get signed to a label you'll most likely need a booking agent, even if you still have little draw. The agency will assume that your label will help you develop a good following. Also venues will take you more seriously if you are on a label they recognize.

What we have: Booking was one of the first elements of the music business to move completely online. No one sends packages any more. You send emails and based on your perceived online hype and could feasibly get a gig anywhere. Venues are often democratic, if you can get people in the door they will book you. But again, do you need the label to help you get people in the door? I find that booking is something anyone can do, but it is also one of the most time consuming jobs that takes a certain skill set and a lot persistence. Labels still give you legitimacy in the eyes of established booking agents.

The Status Quo:
What Labels Have: Seems to me that the biggest advantage that labels have (which may also be their downfall) is that they are connected in the old machine of the industry. So for instance, it would be so great to self-release and not print CDs. However magazines and radio stations still require hand mailed hard media. This means that distributing your self-release with a good chance at showing up on college radio and in music magazines is prohibitively hard for most small artists. Ultimately I guess these institutions will go online for submissions. I think part of the reason we don't know what record labels are going to be like in the future is because we don't yet know what records will be like in the future. To me the video world is the most clearly ascendant force, and perhaps a full length video (like Kanye West's Runaway) will be the standard "packaging" for a musical release.

What we have: We can decide for the future how music will be released by doing it ourselves in whatever way we want. But it might be a slow climb trying to get Spin Magazine to read your unsolicited emails.


PART 2

So on looking at the list above it seems like labels offer 2 fundamental things: Resources and Status.

Resources: Resources may come in the form of money or access to some or all of the things listed above. The range is wide (but definitely don't sign to a label unless they are offering you some of those things.)

Status: The Label is still one of, if not the, most powerful curatorial force in the music industry as far as I can tell. Being signed basically means that someone has decided to put resources behind you. This is valuable to the musician undoubtedly, and useful to the writers and venues that are sifting through thousands of artists. The question I have is: Is it worth signing away 50% of your profits to gamble on whatever status you may or may not achieve through the label. Most artists take the oppurtunity to sign with a label still because "50% of something is more than 100% of nothing."

An established artist actually fundamentally shouldn't need a label. If an established artist can raise money through fans or from personal wealth he or she can do essentially everything that a label can do and then keep all of the royalties from sales and make potentially ten-fold what he or she might make from a label release. In fact an established artist that ditches the label and then goes independent might get all sorts of indie cred. This is great news for famous people, but what about artists that aren't already famous?

What I've noticed is a very specific type of artist as the new template for success. This is what I cal the Artistpreneur. The Artistpreneur is a type of Artist who is as invested in fame and success as they are in art. And these artists have been enormously successful in the current landscape of the music industry. They work tirelessly to develop their brand, promote themselves, get noticed in any way possible. They are compulsive tweeters, social networkers, bloggers, vloggers, and emailers. The proliferation of this type of Artist has opened up a new pathway to success as a musician but I would also argue that it has created its own type of homogenization. The Music Industry has been much maligned of the years for developing formulas for success that it pushes onto its artists, but I might argue that internet culture has done the same thing. Internet Culture has created an imperative to be an Artistpreneur in order succeed. "If you don't succeed it is your own fault because everyone can make a youtube video." This whole question brings me to try and understand how does the new relationship to artist success show up in culture.

In the old model of popular music the record labels functioned like gardeners who chose which seeds to plant and cultivated them carefully. The minute anything else would start to grow in the garden they would carefully prune it and claim credit for it. Right now the musical landscape is beginning to look more like a Jungle. Sure the labels are still planting, but things are growing completely out of their control. I support the jungle of culture because it means that there is more culture available and thus more cultural conversation overall. I believe culture creates nuance and intelligence in society and is crucial for an intelligent. In the jungle culture, labels' resources are becoming less valuable, but their ability to bestow status might be becoming even more important. Basically the noise floor is raising, which means that more and more artists are being heard which makes it harder to stand out. Labels help you stand out a little, but mostly only to the extent that their reputation and resources allow.

Ultimately maybe there will be a broad wiki of emerging artists that could be a democratic ladder of recognition that artists could climb. That is sort of what myspace was about 3 years ago but now myspace is a cyber ghetto and the internet is flooded with sites trying to be the home of emerging bands. Facebook has the clear opening to be that site but it's band/pages platform is a miserable failure which has caused bands to seek out other locations. It would be beautiful to see artists able to convert hard work and online presence directly into a sustainable career, but as of now lawyers, labels and managers still hold on to a lot of power. What is also missing from this conversation is the whole design of publishing and copyright law which is still stuck with dozens of out dated rules and complications. The complexity and arcaneness of these laws also keeps record labels in business.

One online platform that is missing is one that assists self releasing artists in distributing fair royalties to their collaborators and band members. If this platform existed, established artists might be more interested in working with self-releasing artists because there would be a clear system in place for them to be paid upon the success of the collaboration.

As we move forward into the internet-based future, artists will become more empowered and labels will have a looser grip on their work. Labels however, still serve the crucial function of providing status and resources, and they consistently are a key element as artists leap from struggling to successful. The traditional label model seemingly becomes less profitable by the day but artists are still dependent on them to provide the capital for their success.

We are in a clear transition period right now, and I'm hoping for an evolution of online tools that will bring a sustainable career more consistently within reach of self-releasing artists.

Indie Music 2020

Anne Stewart who writes The Buzz for GigHive asked for my thoughts about the future of the Indie Music Scene.. The feature is here: Indie Music 2020

Here's what i wrote...

"One thing that really caught my attention in the last week is that Apple purchased lala.com, which says to me that the biggest online music retailer will be moving to a more subscription-based model and will start allowing and encouraging users to keep their music in the cloud. This probably means that an obsession over storage capacity will give way to prioritizing bandwidth and constant connectivity.

As an independent musician, I always champion the dissolution of music prisons (DRM, mainstream record stores, horded music collections) because they prevent the flow of media and subculture from reaching the listener. When everyone’s music is in the cloud it will hopefully be easier to exchange and access new streams, though maybe the opposite is true if iTunes wants to tell you how to manage your music.

Another thing that I’m pleased to see happening at Bandcamp.com is that they are offering high-resolution versions of their artists’ music. This is an exciting trend because for all the joys of the mp3 craze it has caused a real devaluing of the high-fidelity listening experience. Listening to 128 kbps is like injecting bit-rot into your brain.

That is all in the next 2 years. After that, it’s anyone’s game. A few ideas:

• Cell phones become a significant music production platform. They’ve already become home to demos and sketches for nearly everyone I know. I’m still waiting for the first #1 megahit produced on an iPhone.
• Auto-tune is going to start to sound really dated.
• I’m listening to how recording/producing is changing in indie music. Something that’s gone along with the loss of fidelity in the mp3 generation is that crisp and clean recordings aren’t so precious anymore. That used to be the signal of a professional studio but now a digital recording in a quiet apartment can be cleaner than an old studio recording with tape hiss (though now we have computer hum). So people are becoming more and more creative with how they are introducing noise and space into their recordings. Artists are getting more and more sophisticated with recording technology. I assume that most bands start recording themselves these days, so when they start working with a producer, they already have a developed idea of how they should sound recorded.
• I’m heartened that the indie music scene has seemed amenable to real sonic experimentation and I foresee that only developing further. There is still somewhat of a mandate for rhythm but on top of that you can do nearly anything and people will be interested. People are getting used to massive amounts of parallel input and maybe that opens up avenues for composers and songwriters.”

44 Considerations for Young Composers

1. Stop listening to what everything/everyone seems to be saying.

2. Then start listening again whenever.

3. Spend lots of time doing whatever you like doing.

4. Forget about everything you learned sometimes.

5. Make music that only your cat likes.

6. Music can be the wrong place to look sometimes.

7. You are very powerful.

8. You are very tiny.

9. You are perfect.

10. You are making a difference.

11. As an experiment stop trying to do the thing that you've been expecting yourself to do.

12. If you aren't doing anything you are still a composer.

13. Don't write a score for a piece that doesn't have a score just because the grant application says you have to have a score. (You might suggest that they read Varese's "The Liberation of Sound" 1936)

14. Don't take the rhythm out of your piece because "contemporary music isn't supposed to have rhythm."

15. Don't put a pulse in your piece because you think no one will listen to it otherwise.

16. Whatever your parents think about your music is fine.

17. If your significant other won't listen to your piece all the way through it doesn't mean that he/she is not right for you.

18. Read "Noise" by Jaques Attali

19. Read "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Ross

20. Music bloggers have a disturbing appetite for live and recorded music, and you shouldn't feel like you have to keep up. In fact, just don't read them unless you really like the feeling it gives you.

21. Go to the library sometimes.

22. Listen to the city.

23. Take a walk.

24. Eat local vegetables.

25. Consider the semiotics/social impact/evolution/formal structures/psychological effects of recording technology.

26.Try to imagine that sonic art (music) is the non-linguistic expression (explanation) of an infinitude of things that happened, are happening, and that will happen.

27. Grant yourself permission to write the future of humanity's organizational efforts in all areas.

28. Work with the assumption that your music has a massive capacity to achieve transformative results.

29. Consider quantity over quality.

30. Allow yourself to keep everything and forget everything.

31. If you want to say "I hate music and I'm going to do something else" just say it.

32. If you went to a conservatory it doesn't mean that you are letting someone down if you:
a. Don't notate your music.
b. Do something different entirely
c. Put down the instrument you practiced for your entire life and only play an instrument you barely know how to play.
d. Never practice.
e. Have a healthy skepticism (disrespect) for all the crap you learned in conservatory.

33. If you didn't go to a conservatory you don't need to "go back to school" and refer to 9.

34. If you are currently in a conservatory don't take yourself so seriously, remember that you are learning inside a specific institutional dynamic (point of view), and refer to 9.

35. Specify failure. Generalize success.

36. All rejected applications are valuable gifts, the summed value of which will purchase tremendous acceptance in the future.

37. When you don't get the grant you will doubt yourself. When you get the grant you will be proud of yourself and then doubt yourself. All of that is fine.

38. Be wary of out dated and newly minted sonic and musical moralities.

39. Be wary of composers and teachers trash talking "Pop Music" if they aren't referring to specific artists or musical currents. It's entirely possible that they don't know what they are talking about.

40. Be wary of the cult of the "new."

41. Be cautious fixating on new technologies just because they are new. Consider letting your musical imagination guide you to the technology that will aid in the realization of the imagined sounds.

42. Think about what caveman music might have sounded like, and what purpose it might have served.

43. Send your music to your middle school music teacher. I bet he/she will be really happy you did.

44. Make more music. We need it.


I wrote this piece in response to Annie Gosfield's Article for the New York Times website entitled "Advice for Young Composers."

Marshall McLuhan on recorded sound via Excerpter

From “Understanding Media” (Routledge Classics, 2001), first published 1964

300: “Just how obliquely the phonograph was at first received is indicated in the observation of John Philip Sousa, the brass-band director and composer. He commented: ‘With the phonograph vocal exercises will be out of vogue! Then what of the national throat? Will it not weaken? What of the national chest? Will it not shrink?’
One fact Sousa had grasped: The phonograph is an extension and amplification of the voice that may well have diminished individual vocal activity, much as the car had reduced pedestrian activity.”

309: “A bried summary of the technological events relating to the phonograph might go this way: /…/
The telephone: speech without walls.
The phonograph: music hall without walls.
The photograph: museum without walls.
The electric light: space without walls.
The movie, radio, and TV: classroom without walls.
Man the food-gatherer reappers incongruously as information-gatherer. In this role, electronic man is no less a nomad than his paleolithic ancestors."

The Lisps on the Associated Press. Whoa.

Collaborating on stage and at home

Is it possible to be in a rock band, live together and come out unscathed? SAMANTHA TUNIS gives it a whirl.

The Lisps. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy of Samantha Tunis/Chad R. Nicholson)

Tuesday, 14 November, 2006, 19:05 EST, US

It might be everyone's secret fantasy to be in a rock 'n' roll band, but try starting one with your live-in boyfriend, and things really start to get complicated.

Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac, a band that included and subsequently led to the demise of two couples, once said that being in his band was like being in group therapy. The same could be said about The Mamas and The Papas, a band that despite its success broke up three years, several in-band affairs, countless reconciliations and one divorce later. The White Stripes continue to make beautiful music together, but their marriage fell apart.

All of which raises the question: is musical collaboration between a couple a relationship death-sentence?

Here's hoping not. For the last year, I have been in a band with my boyfriend. Our songs generally grow from the jungle of our one-room apartment in the South Bronx, which we share with a senile Dalmatian and a bipolar, tri-colored cat we call "Rumsfeld."

keep reading...

I've gotta admit Girl Talk's album Night Ripper is the brilliant and delicious party pop version of what I've been trying to come up with on my ipods. I'm bummed I missed his CMJ show.



here's a great review
and check it out at hype machine

Miya Masaoka, George Lewis, Marina Rosenfeld, Ikue Mori at The Stone. 11/7/06
this was a brilliant set. I don't have a camera right now so these scribbles will function as my visual aid.


Things that I heard and thought about during this concert:
1. Water
2. Sediment
3. sand+water=beach
4. gaps
5. bells
6. max/msp pitch roller coaster sound=I think i don't like any more.
7. So much of taste in terms of non-representational or identifiable electronic sound
has to do with the sound's
a) mystery
b) humor
c) relationship the sounds YOU use
d)
e)what you can figure out about the sound
f) etc.
8. Marina's turntable seemed so locomotive. While everyone's else's sounds were in a kind of atmospheric or dream realm she was doing the work of the turbine or the wheel. I've never thought of a turntable as a vehicle but it truly seemed that way during the set.
9. George lewis played:computer/trombone Marina Rosenfeld: turntable Ikue Mori: Computer/footpedal, and Miya Masaoka: Koto/computer.
10. No one seemed like they were trying to prove anything which was nice
11. there was a lot of granular going on. see #7
12. The second and 3rd pieces were much more playful.
13. something so important in jazz and some realms of improvised music is the voice of the performer. Where as here because everyone is going through the same mixer the premium seems to be on merging your voice completely with others. Marina's voice was identifiable almost always because of the crackle of her dub plates and her visible manipulation of the records, as was Miya's when she played koto. If you wanted to know what Ikue Mori was doing you had to watch her foot, which only gave you a tiny clue. And George's sound was largely a mystery except the handful of times he picked up the trombone, and when he put on a sample of a lady singing and everyone looked at him.
14. brilliant.
15. maybe all the sediment was underlined by the record crackle. I got the feeling much of the granulized water was coming from Ikue Mori and every one was using string sounds to cushion the koto.
16. how do you write about music like this?

Miya Masaoka is Curating the Stone in November