What is the point of a music label? Is it just: “Promote music and share profit”?
In: 2
Back in the day the label was critically important.
You’re just some band playing music in local bars.
How do you rent expensive studio equipment and record an album?
How do you find a good sound engineering team to mix the album?
How do you print 500,000 records?
How do you distribute them?
How do you contact venues and arrange tour dates and contracts?
How do you get in touch with radio stations?
This stuff is complex, and in the pre-YouTube world bands really had no shot at getting big without help from the corporate side to handle all this business and manufacturing.
Then the internet came around and kneecapped the industry overnight.
The recording and live music side of the equation is still more or less the same, but profits on the albums themselves never recovered.
Music labels got started at a time when the only way to distribute music was to stamp it onto vinyl discs. Recording music (that sounded good) onto a master disc, then mass-producing that recording both required specialized and expensive equipment that no independent musician had access to. Music labels were the folks that had that equipment. They also had lots of connections that help to popularize and promote the music. They could get it played on the radio, reviewed in magazines, and advertised in the newspaper, etc.
Since the rise of digital music, labels have essentially lost control of the physical “means of production” in music but still provide a lot of the same promotion and distribution services. This has made them still useful – especially for artists who either already are or want to hit it truly big – but no longer essential.
There are lots of up-front costs to creating an album… studio time, engineering/mixing, perhaps session musicians, etc. and the studios pay for that. There may be licensing songs written by others or even helping find songs to perform on the album. Once the album is created, there is the marketing, distribution (physical and electronic), licensing/rights, tracking sales and paying out commissions, etc. Some of the big costs are less today — you no longer need a label to front the production and physical distribution of so many records/cassettes/CDs as in the past, but there are still phyical copies to produce and distribute, as well as getting copies out to radio stations, streaming services. Labels are also a source of networking/connections, to help connect up and coming acts as openers for bigger bands, connections with venues, cross-promotion on TV and radio.
Music labels have lots of money. If a musician signs with them, the label will use that money to record the music, publish the music, and advertise the music.
Basically. Same as a real wastage agent. Agents historically were great because they had access to marketing and networking that the layperson just couldn’t access.
Music labels are the same. They’ve got the network and resources and established connections to record, manage your tour, market your album, source high quality producers, and position your albums and tours so that they reap the most profit.
That landscape has changed thanks to streaming services and high quality home recording studios that are relatively affordable. But Joe Schmo still can’t just go up to Live Nation and book a top venue, or plug a song on the radio, or get an artist’s name into award shows.
Latest Answers