Intersting read about the demise of big music business

[Pablo Sanchez]

No Major labels, No Radiohead

[AD]

First Dave Lowery now Mike Doughty. Love it that (some of) my musical heroes are smart and literate too.

[Jay Funk Dawg]

I don't agree with everything this guys says, but he does make a good point on how record compaines invest in the acts via tour support.

The Industry is changing and the power shift seems to be moving towards the promoters. Live Nation can build headliners by putting them in front of the right crowds.

In my experience bands are going on the road to promote their new CD, but also to take advantage of the promotional opportunities that promoters can give them - postering, email blasts, pr, web promo...

I think that companies like AEG, Live Nation, the thousands of festival around the world need bands as big as Radiohead... So as record labels get smaller, the promoters who often have build strong one on one relationships with the audiences will pick up the slack.

[kookycanooky]

http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2007/10/when-pigs-fly-death-of-oink-birth-of.html

This was a good one from 2007

[ollie]

This article didn't impress me as much as the Lowery piece. I tend to think that talent and ambition rises to the top so I'm not so sure we wouldn't have Radiohead without major labels. Maybe they wouldn't be as massively popular but they'd still be there.

I think a more appropriate title would be "No Major labels, No Nickleback", which doesn't sound so bad at all.

[Pablo Sanchez]

ere.

I think a more appropriate title would be "No Major labels, No Nickleback", which doesn't sound so bad at all.

Completely disagree. I think without labels being able to invest in something that could pay off more down the road, all we will be left with from the labels is nickelback type bands.

I've thought for a while that music is now divided into two groups. It's like WWE wrestling and professional sports. We have music and music entertainment. More and more the only thing the established big labels can take any chance on is music entertainment.

[Booche]

Apparently Nickleback hit a top 20 single in 1999 under their own independent label. Labels came calling. They continued to tour via their own support and eventually signed with a smallish-medium sized label (at the time), Roadrunner Records. Mainstream success came in 2001 with the release of their third album. In 2006 Warner Bros bought Roadrunner Records, I would assume in no small part to Nickleback.

So which came first? The chicken or the egg? It appears to me that Nickleback were on their way to making it because people originally liked their music before it was shoved down our throats. They and the label made it together. This is all provided the internet is telling me the truth. They are the 2nd best selling foreign act in the U.S. behind The Beatles for the 2000s. Wow.

[Booche]

I cant believe you dicks just made me waste my break looking that shit up.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

that's musitainment for you, the deeper you dig the more you regret it

[ollie]

Cheap Nickleback joke aside, my point about Radiohead still stands.

[bouche]

the thing I took out of it was that you could replace "record company" with "investor". It doesn't have to be a record company that invests in the band. There are game companies, but developers have also proven that they can do it on their own. There is no "App company" out there and there are lots of people putting software out that goes viral nutz.

Indie game developers make a demo that wow's people with money by going to conventions after working very hard, and find people interested in their product. Those people fund their promotion and get them into the market.

I think musician's can do the same thing. Talent, computers and drive.

mind you, there is no touring involved or sleeping on shitty floors.