With the advent of the Internet and more accessible media, individual musicians are more and more turning to themselves to manage and run their musical careers. Much differently from years past, artists are wary of the benefits of signing with a record label, because they feel that they can provide themselves the same services that a record label would offer them without signing a contract.
However, record labels still have many benefits that they can offer both emerging and established artists. I am currently working on creating a student run record label here at the University of Maryland, and feel that I am in a position where I can discuss these topics. I plan to discuss how a record label can effectively assist an artist in three key areas of musician development:
- Production of the artists music
- Distribution and Marketing of the artists
- Managing the artists financially on the business side
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Source: http://musicians.about.com/od/beingamusician/a/majorlabelpandc.htm
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ReplyDeleteI said a lot, and now I can't paste it.. But pretty much Im excited to hear your speech because a few of my favorite artists are unsigned and it really sucks, because often the cant afford to go on big multi city tours. So they play small venues in pop up locations... I can definitely see where label support could and would help finance such a thing.
ReplyDelete-RobbS-
Can't wait to hear your speech, Tom! I think a lot of record labels have gotten bad reputations due to misconceptions about their intentions for signing certain artists but I agree that the labels can nonetheless be really helpful to new artists and even mainstream ones. Interested to hear your argument for sure since you're also a musician!
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting topic, and I didn't know you were involved with a student-run record label on campus! I didn't even know our university had that!!
ReplyDelete@Grace - We don't have it yet haha we are just starting it up, its been in the works for about a month now and we're hoping to have it up and running by the end of the spring semester!
ReplyDeleteGreat topic! Do you listen to NPR's All Songs Considered? They had a podcast episode about this topic.
ReplyDelete@Mike: I don't get a chance to listen to NPR much, but I'll be sure to check it out!
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