Wise & Young
Can the Record Labels Last Another 5 Years? Posted on October 25th
My favorite bands are only on MySpace, but aren’t signed to a record label. These bands have sold out shows on Sunset Blvd and all throughout Western America, but they don’t have a manager. These shows are full of people that love the music, but would never buy the record.
These bands make their money off of concert sales, and that’s it. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. I don’t know if this is the direction that music is going to take concerning the economics of the business, but even the smallest bands and music acts now know how to capitalize on the internet.
They are killing the radio – slowly. They are killing record labels – slowly. They are actually making money and surviving on their own.
‘Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah’, one of my favorite bands of the year, produced and sold their own record through their website. Thanks to a fantastic album, brilliant reviews, and a great internet presence, they have already managed to sell 20,000 copies of their album, allowing them pull in around $200,000 without any record company or distributor.
For bigger bands like Korn, deals with record labels are focusing more with concerts then albums. This is great for bands, because it motivates the people at the record labels to put their heart and soul in to the band and leads to more artistic creativity.
Furthermore, my favorite outcome of the internet’s affect on the music industry is the quality. The quality is becoming fantastic and bands are starting to realize with no record label, they can have full artistic creativity and rely on their own passions. Thus they can use the internet to connect to the most important market in the music industry - the youth, and turn them in to fans and make profits through concerts or get hooked up with Itunes, etc.
Why even bother with a record label?
Trackback URL