The Re-Centralization Of Indie Music

Indie labels are increasingly banding together in organizations like Merlin and A2IM to counter-act the clout that major labels have when cutting deals for their massive catalogs with the likes of MySpace, Zune and You Tube. You may read about most of this on Hypebot before, but a new Wired.com does a good job of putting all of the pieces of this important trend together.

"Here’s a theory: The biggest trend in music in the past 10 years has been decentralization. Technological advances have made it possible to form a label if you’re just one person with a computer…all it takes is finding a few new bands…then convincing them to let you handle their business needs (which increasingly means acting in a managerial role while outsourcing promotion and distribution)."

  "…Along with the decentralization trend, a strong need for new types of centralization has appeared, such as MySpace…(as a) central repository…It’s as if the more decentralized things get in music, the greater the need is for certain kinds of centralization."

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Indie labels have started organizing themselves into a single negotiating and lobbying unit — another move toward centralization — in response to being locked out of markets and lawmaking sessions dominated by major labels." (more)

This is a trend we’ll see more of in the coming months and years on many levels. From the increased importance of gate keepers (i.e. blogs, critics, internet radio) to the banding together on indie labels it’s an inevitable trend.  But it’s important to not that virtually none of this new "re-consolidation" effects the creativity or entrepreneurial spirit of indie labels and musicians.