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Why You Don't Need a Label

Examining the New Age of the Music Industry and Why the Days of Major Label Dominance May Be Coming to an End

By Bardo NovotnyPublished 5 years ago 2 min read
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We are now well into the digital age. Everything is (almost) instant, and we have a world of information at our fingertips. So it begs the question, is a record deal really that important when you could just do it yourself.

Major labels have had a fairly consistent rep surrounding them that they don't pay their artists enough. David Byrne recently spoke on the fact that in a lot of record deals, the artist only sees 15 percent of earnings. This seems absurdly low when it's the artist creating the content that is being consumed. This business model is old, and unfortunately, has not caught up and evolved with the rapid growth of the digital age.

Streaming

There is no debate about this... STREAMING IS SAVING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY.

In the early 2000s the revenue started to decline due to the increase of music pirating platforms and illegal downloads. This ease of digital music began to become the downfall of the industry. Now at the time of this article (2019) the music industry has just passed its third year of growth. There is no question that this is due to streaming. Steaming now counts for a majority of music revenues in the U.S. at a solid 65 percent. So with all this new money coming into the industry, and a massive amount of that coming from streaming, it makes sense why the traditional label deal may not make sense.

In the past, record label were the gatekeepers for artists to get their music heard. If you wanted to make money off of you music, you needed to get it into stores, but to do that you needed it distributed, and to do that, you needed a record deal.

Streaming is open to anyone. If you create a song, you can distribute it to all the major streaming platforms, promote, and monetize it all yourself. Suddenly, there isn’t a barrier in the way of your music and potential listeners and fans.

Spotify and Apple Music even give artists customized analytics on their listener information so you can plan shows around the cities that love you music the most. The power is shifting from the major labels and corporations, back into the hands of the musicians and the artists behind the music. It’s a truly remarkable time to be in the music industry.

Nowadays everyone has access to a platform on social media. Creating content to win fans over who will then in turn promote your music for you, simply because they love it, and they love what you’re doing. That’s priceless. That’s something that major labels are now scratching their heads, trying to figure out how to create real, authentic, fan engagement.

With consistent release of music, content and fan engagement, there isn’t much in your way, and with so many tools available to help artists nowadays there's no excuse for not chasing the dream.

There are moves to be made…

Let’s get it.

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About the Creator

Bardo Novotny

Music Producer/Ranter/Hand Model

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