What is the purpose of labels in the music industry and why do they hold so much power as well making more money than the artists signed?
In: Other
As someone who works in a Major, I’ll try to elaborate a bit more than just “Hurrr durrr evil capitalists”. The purpose of a label will vary and change from one to another as the work they can cover is very large and changes from one artist to another depending on the contract. But they are 4 major things they can cover : distribution of the music, marketing, mastering / mixing, and touring.
The most basic contract for a label is the distribution deal. It basically is printing the CD’s / vinyls and putting them in stores and publishing them on streaming platforms. Almost every artist, even the “independent” ones, have a distribution deal with a label because it is extremely time consuming and complicated to do. Especially for a starting artist. Tho it is slowly starting to change as some platforms offer to distribute your music online on every streaming platforms for a small yearly fee.
Second contract is the marketing contract which is exactly what it says : marketing. Adds, billboards, articles in magazines, interviews in radio, push in famous Spotify playlists, … But it’s not only limited to those “basics”. It also consists in everything related to your image. For instance if Nike is looking for an artist to represent their brand in a video or an event, your label will push for you. Or more basically if you need a music video they will invest in it or find a brand willing to. A marketing deal is almost always coupled with a distribution deal.
Third contract is a Mastering / mixing deal where the label will help you creating your music. They will find and pay for music studios, for musicians, for art directors to work with you and help you shaping your musical project and album, and sometime give you a salary even before anything is out. In such they become as much of a creator as the “artist”. In this instance they obviously have rights over your music. The artists very rarely work all alone to create music, it’s really hypocrite from the artists when they complain about their label “stealing their money” when the label is as much part – if not more – of the creation process. (you have no idea how many artists you listen to on a daily basis actually had 10 to 15 people working behind the scenes to actually make the music while the so called “artist” takes all the credits when he didn’t do shit) Quite often this contract comes with a distribution and marketing deal.
Fourth contract, the touring, is actually a rare occurrence. Most of the time a music label doesn’t have the people and the capacity to prepare a tour and they call an external company specialising in touring, or several ones if you tour across the US or Europe. But they are exceptions and some labels do completely take in charge the touring.
As you might have understood by now, all of this steps requires a lot of investment, not only monetary but also time investment from many people. This investment varies a lot depending on the type of contract, therefore the money the label “takes” from the artists is heavily dependent of it.
To all the hate comments on labels, yes some label do shackle their artists and steal money from them but it’s the same as in every business where you will find people doing shit. Label most of the time are here to genuinely help the artists who would never be able to achieve their dream without a huge investment from their label. And more often than not, the real artist are the people in the label actually making music because they love it and not just doing it for the adrenaline rush of being on stage or the sake of being famous.
That was much longer than expected but oh well.
Latest Answers