Major VS Indie Record Labels
As it can be hard for some bands to get noticed by big record labels, Independent labels (Indie labels) are created to house the bands that don't necessarily have the luck of being spotted by the major record labels. Indie labels can be just as big as the corporate record companies, however the majority are smaller.
Music Biz Academy: 'the reason that so few independent record labels succeed is due to the sheer amount of money, work and time it takes to run a record label.'
An indie label has to run all the jobs in the hierarchical graph, all with just a few people, which makes the job significantly harder. As larger conglomerates have the money and reputation to spend and attract the best people in the business, it is much easier for them to hire experienced professionals already established in the business. Whereas major record labels would have individual people purposely hired to discover talent, design posters, and get them played on radio, in an indie record label, this can be the same person doing all those jobs by themselves.
Record Labels & Companies Guide: 'the best way to succeed in the indie record label game is to specialise in either local music or genre music.'
Indie record labels are encouraged to sign artists that complement one another. For example, signing artists that all fit the same genre. If a record label only signs artists that make electronic dance music, they know that is someone finds the artist, likes there music, and wants to know more, the person will look to see other artists that have been signed by the record label. As they are all the same genre, there is a significantly higher change the consumer will like that artist, and purchase their music too.
New media has influenced the idea of starting Indie record labels massively. Youtube, iTunes, Facebook and many other social networks such as soundcloud offer the ability to share music to a wide range of people. Being able to put your music into the public domain is a huge benefit for Indie record labels as they do not have to physically hand out discs to people in the street, the potential consumers could just stubble across it whilst searching the internet. Despite being beneficial to both major record labels and indie record labels, the indie artists are now definitely much easier to find, as more and more indie artists are being found everyday, and because most business (advertising/marketing/promotion/production) is all done digitally, hardware and software can be relatively cheap for a long term investment, allowing indie record labels to thrive through modern day technology, whilst still competing with the major record labels.
Music Biz Academy: 'the reason that so few independent record labels succeed is due to the sheer amount of money, work and time it takes to run a record label.'
An indie label has to run all the jobs in the hierarchical graph, all with just a few people, which makes the job significantly harder. As larger conglomerates have the money and reputation to spend and attract the best people in the business, it is much easier for them to hire experienced professionals already established in the business. Whereas major record labels would have individual people purposely hired to discover talent, design posters, and get them played on radio, in an indie record label, this can be the same person doing all those jobs by themselves.
Record Labels & Companies Guide: 'the best way to succeed in the indie record label game is to specialise in either local music or genre music.'
Indie record labels are encouraged to sign artists that complement one another. For example, signing artists that all fit the same genre. If a record label only signs artists that make electronic dance music, they know that is someone finds the artist, likes there music, and wants to know more, the person will look to see other artists that have been signed by the record label. As they are all the same genre, there is a significantly higher change the consumer will like that artist, and purchase their music too.
New media has influenced the idea of starting Indie record labels massively. Youtube, iTunes, Facebook and many other social networks such as soundcloud offer the ability to share music to a wide range of people. Being able to put your music into the public domain is a huge benefit for Indie record labels as they do not have to physically hand out discs to people in the street, the potential consumers could just stubble across it whilst searching the internet. Despite being beneficial to both major record labels and indie record labels, the indie artists are now definitely much easier to find, as more and more indie artists are being found everyday, and because most business (advertising/marketing/promotion/production) is all done digitally, hardware and software can be relatively cheap for a long term investment, allowing indie record labels to thrive through modern day technology, whilst still competing with the major record labels.