5 Reason Not To Sign A Record Deal
This guest post comes from the folks at likeZEBRA, a new site offering artists a growing suite of direct to fan promotion and sales tools.
1. Competition for Attention – Music artists are already forced to compete for the attention and interest of fans; they shouldn't have to compete for that attention within their own record label. Labels divvy up their focus between multiple signed artists. Whereas an artist may be giving 100% to developing their music career, a label can only allocate a fraction.
2. Quantity over Quality – A record label's main concern is the monetary return on their investment, but an artist's main passion is the quality of the music being produced. Conflicting core values between labels and artists unnecessarily inhibit the creativity and uniqueness of the artists' music.
3. Taxation without Representation – Labels take a cut of the money earned by artists for performing tasks that the artists could actually do themselves with the right access to resources and guidance. A growing number of site and services including likeZEBRA.com and others offer recording and promotional tools to get the music directly out to an audience without being an expensive middle man.
4. Out of Touch – Labels have a toxic fixation on record sales. This is an anomaly in today's low record-selling music industry. With the easy access to cheap or free music online, labels are rapidly losing their relevance for turning their focus more towards the importance of live performances. Even major bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails addressed their labels' irrelevance by selling recent albums directly to fans online.
The most striking point here is: “Labels take a cut of the money earned by artists for performing tasks that the artists could actually do themselves with the right access to resources and guidance.” While I am all for DIY to the best of one’s abilities (and am a DIY artist myself), a label is a resource and provides guidance…that is its role, for which it makes a bet that no other “bank” will (loan/investment in an artist) and takes a chunk in return. Does one need a label to be successful? No. Nor does one need an architect to build a house, a mechanic to fix a car, or a lawyer to negotiate a contract. But these are all service providers that assist one in navigating a process and enable one to do it on a grander level with more efficiency. A bad record deal is no different from any other bad deal, and a good one is no different from any other good one. All deals come at a price, hold some risk, and hopefully reap a reward. The “art of the deal” is knowing when to sign on the dotted line.
I always laugh when someone makes the Radiohead and NIN reference. Both bands are products of the old model and both bands had the benefit of huge promotional dollars that majors spent on them in an age when distribution and consumption of music was largely controlled by these labels. I am an anarchist to a certain degree but still see benefit to record deals when it applies to certain acts.
I always laugh when someone makes the Radiohead and NIN reference. Both bands are products of the old model and both bands had the benefit of huge promotional dollars that majors spent on them in an age when distribution and consumption of music was largely controlled by these labels. I am an anarchist to a certain degree but still see benefit to record deals when it applies to certain acts.
Whilst labels take a cut (a massive cut!) the artists will still be earning a hell of a lot more than they would as an unsigned act. Labels have the established connections and resources (most importantly the financial resources) to effectively market records. Which unsigned bands tend not to have. If you want to commit to a career making music you HAVE to be concerned with making money, otherwise how are you supposed to live? Labels have input into records because they know what sells, and it sells because people want to hear it. If you’re not prepared to compromise based on the advice of people that have had millions of people listen to records they’ve been responsible for, does that mean you don’t think as many people as possible should hear your songs?
If you have a good manager and lawyer before putting pen to paper with a label, they should be able to negotiate the level or artistic input from the act.
The only benefit of doing things in a DIY manner is the absolute fun of it all! Cos you won’t make a living from it 🙂
Well, I don’t like this black/white thinking concerning labels. I know a lot of independent labels doing a hell of a good job to promote their artists and bring them into the money including the artist’s freedom of quality music producing.
My impression is like this:
If you’re getting started as an artist or a band, the DIY-Model is the way to go. You can create a fanbase and take a first step into the business.
But the better you get, the more attention is coming up, the point of working with good partners shows up immediately. Like getting a manager, promoter or even a label.
The more you are on tour, the more you need someone to do the work in the background. Of course pay attention on who you work with. Talk to other bands, ask them about their experiences with their label, the fees that get payed etc.
There are a lot of sharks in the business, on the independent- and majorlabel level. Of course in the past view years a lot of news popped up, showing the mean 360 degree deals or short termed contracts pushing the artist to produce by hook or by crook.
And I have to agree, NIN or Radiohead have this huge fanbase due to the label’s activities in the past 10 years. With a fanbase like that it’s quite easy to sell the music on your own again.
I agree here with jeff, if you think about radiohead, now where would they be if it hadn’t been for their major label and major publishing deal with warner/chappell, sure probably still somewhat of a big band, their music is of course much of the foundation of their success, but only a certain percentage of their success.Now after, becoming a mainstream success and also becoming quite wealthy can they happily judge the majors and take risky career moves. We see this a lot now not just in Radiohead, but if no big success or money had come to them, would these bands still be in the same position of power to a very large audience? Don’t think so
This is a great example of going the extra mile and making press releases into actual content. Better than most…but still, this was basically press release for Zebra.com
Not saying Hypebot shouldn’t run this, so much as saying that way more music tech companies should follow your lead and stop doing crap promo. This is Doing It Right.
Best promo campaign of all time is definitely Topspin, though…making all that data available and offering so much tutorial content = a genuine service to the community and the species.
Labels have distribution channels that DIY can’t touch.
NIN and Radiohead are both hypocrites. Both currently have deals with SONY for distribution and marketing.
It’s a fact, Jack. No need to be coy, Roy.
Jules
Sure there are some benefits not signing a record deal. But let’s be realistic, you don’t get to be a major commercial act without being on a major label. For bands like NIN and Radiohead to thumb their noses at labels and hailing being independent as the best thing ever, is hypocritical. It is really quite annoying to keep reading over and over again that big labels are no longer relevant. To put it as my boss says, “Anyone with that many copyrights will not die.”
I am an aspiring artist, and I have also been self-employed running two different (non music related) small businesses for the last 12 years. I am also very much a Gen-X tech nerd who grew up with the birth of the Internet.
Given my experience with running small businesses and intimate knowledge of both the culture and technology of the Internet, I am very much “one of the choir” on these new music blogs.
Recently I bought Passman’s book All You Need To Know About The Music Business and have found it absolutely SHOCKING what a horrific form of artistic prostitution the old industry was.
Reading that book has absolutely solidified in my mind that I want nothing to do with that whole mess.
Stealing music from likezebra is pretty easy…
like they don’t have a clue…
Fuck the middle man five yrs from now there will be no more labels.
So the benefit of not signing a deal is that artists can do more of the work side of the record business. I’m pretty sure that most of the artists aren’t of that mind and the value of a label depending upon their ability to deliver based upon experience is invaluable to those in the business. As for labels going away I just don’t see it happening. However sure some the services they offer may change and a few distributors have enhanced Label Services — None-the-Less there is still so much involved in getting a record out that I have to question if the person writing this ever worked on a release that was sold to someone besides iTunes (USA) .