Why are record labels important?

To be pains in the damn ass to humble soundies.

heh heh "assinine"

If being a part of a larger popular culture matters to you (not saying it should), then record companies (and the money they use to promote and create interest in artists) is important. For example, say to have somebody become a cultural phenomenon like say Eminem was a few years ago really requires the budget to make videos, big recording budgets, provide tour support etc. that only a label can provide. I, for one, would miss that if music became this really amorphous web of download, blogs, etc...There is something I enjoy about watching music or a musician strike a chord with millions of people across the country....but that doesn't really have anything to do with the actual music.

On the music level, if it all got to the point of a bunch of bedroom recorders doing stuff for free and being dowloaded, traded on the Internet etc....I think we would miss out on a lot of great "big albums." To use a couple of examples, for instance I don't think Dr. Dre or Timbaland would be able to create the kind of sound quality and productions they do without access to high-quality (expensive) studios and mastering facilities (if you've ever made a record you know how important good mastering is to the overall sound quality of a record)....on the more "indie" side, I don't think you'd see a group like the Flaming Lips be able to record an album like The Soft Bulletin without the cash and backig of a major label.

(sorry for all spelling and typos errors in previous post)

Financial backing has little to do with their importance, to me at least. There's SO much music out there and labels serve as a way to focus on certain things you are interested in. "oh, I like this, and it's on X label. I should check out other stuff from X label".

that's also a good point which I neglected to mention....

oops has it DOWN. otm. as far as i'm concerned that is the single most important reason for the continued existence of labels.

In theory, record labels act as a "filter," weeding out the seemingly endless supply of crappy bands, and presenting the cream of the crop to the masses. In reality, however, this is BS, especially when applied to the major labels. How many people watch their record store for the latest Warner Brothers or Universal releases?

Indie labels DO perform this function, to some degree, as I actually DO look out for releases from indie labels that I enjoy. Indie labels have done a much better job managing their brand than the major labels.

It is true that it requires a large sum of money to produce a high-end album, so I guess it could be said that labels enable these types of recording; but it's not like you couldn't pay for studio time/fancy production yourself.

As a member of a moderately (VERY moderately) successful indie band, I've been looking at other models. If your production costs are low, and duplication costs are low (which they are, for everyone), then you can do things like:

1. Record and master an album, and THEN shop it to labels, which will do the duplication and promotion.
2. Record and master an album, duplicate it yourself, and just get distribution (not too hard, with the internet and smaller ditribution aggregators like Parasol), which means that you must either self-promote, or hire a third-party promoter to get the word out.
3. Record and master an album, and see if you can get into an online music store - this would almost always require some third-party promotion, but would eliminate the (small) duplication costs.

With the ability to master the CDs yourself for next to nowt,this doesn't mean you actually need labels, though. With a bit of Net savvy, musicians could do everything for themselves. Tis all about taking control of your own product---which most labels remove from you unless you already have a huge following.

I like that more self-reliant artists can put out their own records if they want to, but y'know, it's more to at least pretend you have a "label" even if it's just you releasing your own stuff.

while the cost of making a record is -- or *should be* -- going down, you've still got to market the thing and publicize it and distribute it and get radio to play it and do all those other things that actual working musicians rely on. you don't get front-of-the-store shelf space at other music, or the cover of your favorite zine, or anywhere near the apple download store, or even onto your local community radio station, without someone schmoozing and getting on the phone and typing thousands of emails on your behalf, not to mention spending a little cash on your behalf. you don't necessarily need a label to do this -- you can find an indie publicist and an indie radio promoter and your own booking agent and all that other stuff, or you can try to do it yourself. but internet or no internet, most musicians i know don't want to do most or all of that stuff themselves. they don't want to stay up all night every night licking envelopes and returning phone calls from smarmy strangers. and they don't want to spend the rest of the day chasing down checks from everyone who owes them a dollar. of course there are self-reliant ones among us. but there's an industry full of non-self-reliant ones, too, who can still make some damn good music as long as someone's there to provide the infrastructure.

i don't mean to sound like a label apologist. i've never worked at one and they're no doubt just as corrupt as any big industry. but musicians need business partners -- and that's what labels are, for better or worse -- for the same reasons that writers need magazines and golfers need the PGA. someone's got to keep their eye on the plumbing and the heating.

what he said....

it used to be a label could be considered a surrogate "music friend with good taste who could be trusted".

It would be really awesome if someone would do a World Of Pooh retrospective.

yeah, that would be awesome -- i still dream of that too, but now it just seems like it won't happen. one gets tired of waiting and needling certain people.

Because the customer needs to know how much it costs right!!! Also parents need guidance about whether an album is going to have any swear words in. They serve many useful roles.

I'm sorry Jack, I was thinking about it the other day when walking through North Beach (where I first heard a WoP song by the SF Seals at the Purple Onion).

jon abbey at erstwhile puts muscians together to make music and records that might not have existed if he wasn't around. he's got a track record of not putting out crap, which makes people like me want to hear it, and he packages it beautifully, giving people like me further reason to want it.

Without record labels there would be no deadlines and then all these musicians with their drug-addled minds would never get around to finishing their albums.

xpost -- no problem, baggins. just the coincedence of me thinking about it today and stuff and my pangs of regret -- not about what you said, which i didnt take the wrong way.

Some people in another thread talked about the "gift economy" of musie i.e. a bunch of devoted indie folks making money for each other and giving it away in a big internet share-a-thon, but what about the profit motive....I think there are a lot of great and talented musicians that would have made the albums they made without the promise of becoming rich and world famous (which I think you pretty much need a major label to do....

For example, do you think that Jay-Z or Guns n' Roses (two great artists IMO) would have been content to do what they do for free? Lots of time profit-motive is what inspires people to do great things (esp. in rap, how many times have you heard rappers talk about their music as an alternative to making money dealing drugs or as an escape from their impoverished backgrounds?)

I totally agree - you need the Dalis as well as the Van Goghs. I've just gone into more detail about it on the other thread but I think the "gift economy" stuff will come into play more as a replacement for the small-scale labels and have little impact on the bigger world of pop music. Breaking even or scratching a small living replaced by a more hobby-ish approach.

The biggest point that has been missed in this thread is the fact that labels provide long term curatorial support. A label has a financial incentive to promote and sell your back catalogue long after you have left the business. It allows your work to be framed in a particular aesthetic context, and it allows your influence to be passed down into later generations.

If you want to know why labels and business organizations are important do your homework on the old-school Detroit and Chicago guys. Juan, Kevin, and Derrick still command large booking fees and sell back catalogue like hotcakes. Their influence is still felt, and their place in music history is secure. Nobody knows who the Chicago guys are, and nobody gives a shit about them anymore. The difference is that the Detroit dance music business community was a hell of a lot more savvy than the Chicago guys ever were. Chicago was completely shady and quick buck oriented, and that is why things fell apart for them.