It’s a known fact that all the greatest musicians and songwriters came from prolific music record labels. Atlantic, Electra, A&M, Chess Records, Colombia, Mowtown – they all became extremely successful in the music business for one very obvious reason.
Make sure you read the rest of this article so you don’t end up looking like these dudes in the pic!
Today, these labels have all been sucked up and swallowed into the corporate world of the major record labels but there are a handful of new up and coming prolific labels that are steeling the limelight for pumping out new great artists.
However if there is one thing that these music record labels all have in common, it’s the fact that the people who either started or currently run these labels are actually really clued into what “good” music actually is. They have this flair to be able to pick out real talent as opposed to a one hit wonder.
If you think about it many of the artists on the music record labels above who started out in the 60’s and 70’s all have back catalogues that are sometimes over ten albums deep.
Why?
Because these artists and bands were real “artists” they were really really talented at what they did and they were identified by these labels for that and were sold on the back of their talents as opposed to everything else that major labels can get us, as the audience caught up with.
This isn’t to say that many of these acts on these labels weren’t also sold on other elements besides the music, however no artists gets to record ten albums, if they aren’t recognized as real talent.
Additionally, it’s quite common for these artists to have recorded all their albums with the one label.
This today is un-heard of. Standard deals today are either 2 or 3 albums with options.
Today, most bands get to album three, if they’re lucky and the stars have aligned nicely for them and either get dropped or choose to leave themselves and do what Radiohead did – which was start their own label.
What’s The Point?
The two main points being made here is that all great music record labels know how to firstly find and bring in “real” and “unique” talent and then secondly nurture and keep their artists, not just because they are top selling acts, but because the artists themselves love the people running the label.
When you or your band are out there searching for record labels that you’d like to try and work with, consider the above because, while they are simply observations it should give you some sort of framework to figure out who are the good labels and who are the really great music record labels.
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Tags: Record Labels
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