A Comparative Analysis:

Should an Artist Today Sign to a Major Record Label or an Indie Record

Label?

Jacque Lewis

Business of Entertainment

Joseph Richie

5.10.14

The major record deal, the prestige of such has changed, especially in the last 15 years

due to peer to peer sharing. The major leaders in music today are mainly being ruled by indie

labels on the rise with the major labels eventually becoming nothing more than gloried

distribution companies.

It all started in 1999, the music industry as a whole were reaping the benefits of merging

in the mid-nineties. The big five major labels, Warner Music Group, EMI, Sony, BMG, and

Universal Music Group, were unstoppable and had the power and not to mention, the clout to

entice as many artists as they want to sign deals with million dollar advances as well as the

“promise” of the “good life.” There was also the price of cd sales, where the label made the bulk

of their money back. A major complaint from fans were the price of the CD’s, and the fact that

the singles of the album were sometimes the only good tracks on the album. This whole dynamic

change when two kids and their uncle created a service that gave fans the power to choose what

songs what they wanted. Something that was very powerful and very illegal, yet, it’s something

that changed the music industry forever (TheGuardian.com).

After years of struggle after Napster hit, the music industry has tried many failed services

just to gain no real return on investment, though it appears the “powers that be” in the industry

has finally figured it out with sales being the highest that it has been since 1999

(thenextweb.com). Why is that? Digital distribution, though what’s bad about digital distribution,

at least for major labels, is that absolutely anyone can produce this for themselves or other artists.

The beast of distribution is no longer a factor for aspiring artists, especially with services such as

Tunecore.com giving artists the ability to distribute their music across the major digital platforms

like Spotify and ITunes. Walmart announced recently that it’s cutting its music division by more

than 40 percent completely crippling the physical distribution of CD’s as we know it today

(Billboard.com).

What does this all mean? That the playing field is now even and now the average artists

of tomorrow don’t have to sign a major label deal to reap the same benefits an artist signed to

major label does. Though that doesn’t mean that being signed to major label still isn’t the sexy

thing to do today, it just means that it’s not completely necessary. In fact there’s pros and cons to

being signed to a major label and an indie label.

This leads to the topic of this paper, which will compared being signed to major label to

being signed to an indie label. We’ll look at labels today and take a look at successful artists

enjoying being on major labels. We’ll then look at successful artists signed to indie labels and

compare and contrast the two. This will lead to a discussion of rather an artist today should sign

a major deal or “go indie.”

Let’s start by breaking down the tradition of the old music business. An artist signs a

label deal, and then the artist begins the recording process to find the “hit” song, the song is then

worked to radio stations around the country, and if the song finds a fan base then the artist has a

hit and perhaps a career in the music industry. That was back then, now an artist can simply

upload a song on YouTube and gain enough views to begin their career independently or in some

cases still sign to a major label. This is what happen when an 11 year old Justin Bieber began

uploading cover songs on YouTube to millions of people in the world. (Wired.com) We’re in a

“do you” era where all artists signed to major labels are competing with artists signed to their

own labels uploading their songs YouTube, Spotify and other distribution platforms.

A major label artist has to deal with the pressure of achieving a certain amount of success

or risk getting dropped, or worst, being shelved by the label, meaning the artist is stuck without a

release date for any of their future music. Sounds scary doesn’t it? An indie artist without a

record deal has the freedom to record any type of music they want to put out, in fact, this is what

Curtis Jackson aka 50 cent did when left his major label home for the last 10 years. After

dropping his 2009 album “Before I Self Destruct” Jackson next and final album never saw the

light of day as Interscope, despite past successes with Jackson, decided to shelve his final effort

for an indefinite amount of time (Forbes.com). Unfortunately, it’s not a unique story, “I’ve

recorded about three incarnations of this third album, we’ve chosen the track listing, we’ve done

multiple album photo shoots, chosen the cover, chosen the credits, everything.” And yet, Joanna

Levesque known for her stage name “Jojo,” hasn’t received any communication from her label

Background Records who had a distribution deal in place with Interscope Records

(Buzzfeed.com). She’s currently in middle of a lawsuit with her label.

Though they’re artists who enjoy being in the major label system. Kid Ink, for example,

“I got independent radio spins before and it was good, but it was just a lot more work. There’s a

lot of things you can’t do as an independent artist, you hit this ceiling. I can definitely feel the

difference with the label and the markets I’m reaching now. They know different programs and

applications coming out, stuff you can’t really keep [up with] when you’re trying to focus on

music. (Complex.com)” Of course there are artists who don’t enjoy being on major labels,

School Boy Q, for example, I already did wrong by singing a rap contract, I’m not talking about

TDE, but how we ventured off with the majors. I wish we would have still stayed indie, I don’t

care about being on like 1,000 radios. I love Interscope, but I wish I could have stayed with TDE

(Radio.com).”

It all clearly depends on the artist, and the genre of music being performed. An artist who

just wants to put out music and live a normal life would be better off going directly to

Tunecore.com to release the music themselves. There’s also the possibility of going to an

Independent record label like Compass Records who main genre of music produced is bluegrass,

acoustic and world music. Thad Keim, an executive for Compass Records, mentioned in class

how small the label is only having a staff of about seven people. Through the changes in digital

platforms and distribution, it would be no surprise if the music industry of today, eventually go

back to being small labels with independent owners, which takes us to former Warner Music

Group executive Lyor Cohen. Cohen, along with Kevin Liles and Todd Moscowitz left the major

label system to create their own independent label named 300. Cohen explains the name which is

based on the history of 300 Spartans fighting against the Persian soldiers in 480 B.C. “It was a

battle that changed the way wars are fought, These guys found that if your were well

synchronized, strategic, loyal with great planning and preparedness you could do much more

with less and be highly effective (Billboard.com).” Less is more seems to be the future

philosophy of the music business, though less meaning less staff as more labels will ensure laid

offs to create a leaner, meaner machine.

Though with that said, can a major label still benefit an aspiring artist today? Is the grass

greener on an indie label? Donald Glover also known by his stage name Childish Gambino,

disagrees, in a recent twitter rant covered by Time Magazine, Glover complains about how his

label lied to him and pleaded for someone to buy him out of his contract. Time went on to report

that he named Def Jam and Atlantic Records (major labels) as potential destinations, but will the

grass be greener on a major like Def Jam? Angel Haze disagrees, December of last year, Angel

Haze leaked her entire album on soundcloud.com after months of frustration of waiting for her

album to be released. In response, Universal Republic released the album within a couple of

weeks of the incident (Billboard.com).

The fact is, if the artist is going to enter into any deal with any label, it’s best to have a

great team along with a life plan set up to ensure the artist doesn’t have signing remorse. Either

way, expect to see more labels taking on a more indie approach when it comes to distributing

music. It’s no longer necessary to have a huge marketing budget in place for an artist. For

example, Rick Ross’s Maybach Music, which is distributed by Warner Music Group, uses

Andres Alvarez also known as “Dre Films” as Maybach Music Group’s main music video

director. “Together we come up with strategies to promote the albums and projects. We all feed

off of each other and pass around ideas (The Source).” Indie artist Macklemore does something

similar, frequently collaborating with director Jon Jon Augustavo, who directed three of

Macklemore’s music videos for his successful 2012 album “The Heist (Myspace.com).”

Macklemore also took the “in house” philosophy even further having Ryan Lewis produced the

entire album. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s story can be discussed on an entirely different day,

but the fact that the duo manage to sell 1 million copies of “The Heist” should prove that the

concept of an artist signing a major record deal is quickly becoming an archaic dream.

There’s one big hurdle that the major labels have over Indies, which is radio play.

Though this was also a beast that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis has manage to slay, hiring

Alternative Distribution Alliance, which is owned by Warner Music Group by the way, to

distribute the first single to “The Heist,” Thrift Shop (NPR.com). The rest as we all know is

history. Though it’s best to mention that breaking an artist on the radio in the first place seems to

be tasks that even a major label can’t achieve. In fact, Kenny Smoov mentioned in class how he

has 200 new CD’s on his desk every day and that even an established artist like Toni Braxton

isn’t getting on the radio if he and management doesn’t feel it fits 92Q’s playlist.

End of the day, every artist should really look at the type of music produced and decide

for themselves what side of the business would be suited for their music. They’re successfully

major label artists who loves being on a label like Kid Ink, and they’re successfully major label

artists who still want out of deals like 50 Cent.

The success of the artist will completely depend on the artist’s team, indie or major, the

team will always determine what benefits the artist will reap in the future. Even when the label

appears to be holding the artist back, a great team can help the artist alleviate the process of

being stuck by helping the artist get out of their deal amicably, or even better help the artist avoid

signing with the label altogether. So should an artist sign with a independent label or a major

label? Only the surface has been scratched and it can take a book to cover it all, but the signing

falls completely on how the artist envisions his or her career, either way, a successful career is

determine by the drive of the artist, not the company he or she signs to.

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