New Wave Of Indie

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Is the cleverer elements of the music world rejecting major record companies or have we all forgotten the indie label can be as productive in the early stages - when you need time to grow as a performer/artist - as the major players.

Can talent really blossom under the corporate wing?

Hi Steve

― Sonicred, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Major record labels (and indie ones too but we'll leave that out for the moment) are looking to make money. They do this in two ways - charging as much as possible for product (not a good thing in my book) and selling as many copies of the product as possible (neither good nor bad). 'Talent' can be defined as the ability to produce good records. A record that sells a lot is one that a lot of people presumably think is good. So yes, major labels do seem to be good at spotting "talent" in this sense.

If by talent on the other hand you mean "idiosyncratic artistic vision" then no they aren't particularly good at cultivating it.

The reason the music industry sucks aesthetically is very little to do with its product and much more to do with the ways it tries to make us listen to it - its demographic obsession means it likes individual consumers to have narrow and predictable tastes.

― Tom, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"the indie label can be as productive in the early stages - when you need time to grow as a performer/artist"

a big problem now though is that the indie label is precisely what is forcing lots of groups to be stagnant and have a tiresome schtick from the getgo. tom's point about demographics is a salient one and i don't think it's wrong to say that there are larger indies that work in the same way, going past the point of personal taste into a realm of 'okay, we get what a record on xx yy label will sound like.'

one result: pushing out too many bands that have maybe one or two good singles in them and forcing them to record entire albums' worth of filler, over and over and over again.

another: makeoutclub.com.

― maura, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

going past the point of personal taste into a realm of 'okay, we get what a record on xx yy label will sound like.'

maura is otm. although i think this can be both a positive and a negative.

― jess, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Can talent really blossom under the corporate wing?"

Exhibit A: The Flaming Lips

Exhibit B: Beck

Exhibit C: The Beatles??

Exhibit D: Destiny's Child (oh, you know it!!)

― Adam Bruneau, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Beatles = anomalous in that list (and every other list) because they sold FAR MORE THAN ANYONE AT EMI/CAPITOL ever ever ever expected, so in a way the industry was under THEIR wing — they kind of transformed the majors into their own personal indie for five or six years

― mark s, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's erroneous to cite old 60's/early 70's examples of bands thriving on major labels (i.e. "But the Stooges were on Elektra, right?")... the business was so different then, record sales were a fraction of what they are today, and the labels were really in the dark about tastes and consumption, especially post-Beatles. They were clueless, had no idea how to appeal to the youth market, and so they hired the so-called 'house hippies.' Back then, the bands were the tastemakers, setting the trends, and the labels were the worried lapdogs. Now it's a very different scenario...

― Andy, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Plus, music wasn't completely Balkanized and mapped out demographically. It was a fair gamble that today's underground buzz would, given time, catch on with a wider audience and evenually move millions of units. eg, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Bowie.

― Curt, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Or, rather, today's underground buzz would if it didn't SUCK.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

― g, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah sorry that is actually mostly true - I just meant that indie labels also want to make money, the ways they go about doing it tend to be different to the majors.

― Tom, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

though both are equally guilty of producing sucky music/artists, I feel the indies are less likely to bastardize artistic vision.

― tyler, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But what if the artistic vision needs bastardization to arrive at a better end result?

(A canny game that majors really should play is Director's Cuts of albums - you put out the original and then a couple of years later out comes the "unbastardized" version for extra $$$)

― Tom, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's erroneous to cite old 60's/early 70's examples of bands thriving on major labels (i.e. "But the Stooges were on Elektra, right?")...
Also worth remembering that a lot of the labels that we consider "major" these days were also indies back in the day, such as A&M and Elektra, etc.

― Sean Carruthers, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Under the major labels, there is a lot of pressure on artists to outsell their last album, and to constantly make the record company money. Majors have a tendency to realse music that is similiar to everything else they release, because it's a safer investment that releasing anything different from the the status quo. Indie labels, especially the tiny ones, are only concerned about making money because It allows them to release more albums. It is my understanding that most Indie labels don't make any money for a long time. A good deal of Indie labels are started because people want to releace their own records or those that they find interesting. After that, the quality of music is left to personal taste.

― Blayne, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Man, in 2001, no indies made money (except for Epitath and their ilk)... in fact, a few went under.

― Andy, Wednesday, 30 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Taking sides - rapaciousness vs ineptitude

― Alasdair, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Alasdair's presence on this thread made me remember - indies are certainly as capable as majors at ripping bands off, too.

― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

ha ha, yeah, some indies are both inept AND rapacious.

nothing compared to the nightmare tales of neglect and stupidity I've heard from people who have signed to majors, though. It'll be interesting to see how the Magnetic Fields get on if they do decide to leave Merge.

― Alasdair, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Uh, they did. ;-) The Magnetic Fields signed to Nonesuch here in the states. Ergo, bland AAA schlock and duets with Natalie Merchant ahoy! Y'all might want to kill yourselves now.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Which major are Nonesuch affiliated with?

― electric sound of jim, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

elektra.

― jess, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jeeze, Ned, Nonesuch ain't that bad. They have Bill Frisell, Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet, Emmylou Harris...that's not a bad bunch of company to be in.

― Sean Carruthers, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Better than some, true enough. But he's going to be narrowly marketed for the rest of his tenure there and become KCRW wank fantasy, poor bastard.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Still, it could have been worse. I mean, he could have ended up on Private or something.

― Sean Carruthers, Thursday, 31 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Actually it seems to be Atlantic rather than Elektra. And he's labelmates with both Randy Newman and Wilco too! Seems like appropriate company really.

― electric sound of jim, Friday, 1 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Thanks for your thoughts

― Sonicred, Saturday, 2 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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