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You describe that labels could provide usable service for musicians. Fine, but labels do not work like this. They work rather as investment banks and their inc
by eveningcoffee 11y ago
You describe that labels could provide usable service for musicians.
Fine, but labels do not work like this. They work rather as investment banks and their income does not come from service fees but from speculative bets in hopes to find few musicians with very high returns.
I.e. musicians do not get a product from labels but are themselves a product.
- k-mcgrady 11y agoThink of it like a startup. Until they get to scale musicians make very little money. They therefore need investment. Their investment company (the label) also doubles as a marketing company. How do they get to scale without the label i.e. investors?
- danieldk 11y agoFine, but labels do not work like this. They work rather as investment banks and their income does not come from service fees but from speculative bets in hopes to find few musicians with very high returns. Although some service fees would be reasonable (recording an album, pressing small batches of CDs), most other things that labels offer are simply not affordable for musicians who did not make it yet, e.g.: hiring a good producer or setting up a nation-wide or world-wide PR campaign. Although, it's not impossible to get there by slow, organic, growth, getting an investment can be much more effective if you are good[1]. It's not all that much different from starting a business. [1] Of course, these days some labels do not pick up good musicians, but pretty faces that can playback to music written by label's writers, recorded with pitch correction, etc. But that's what a segment of the general public wants.