Major record label vs Independent record label
- 1. MAJOR RECORD LABEL VS INDEPENDENT RECORD LABEL. By Emma Fox
- 2. COLUMBIA RECORDS Artists they work with: • Beyonce • Foo Fighters • One Direction • Britney Spears • Usher • Justin Timberlake • John Legend • Meghan Trainor • Miley Cyrus • Calvin Harris • Pharrell Williams • Rita Ora • George Ezra • Olly Murs • Paloma Faith • Bob Dylan • Michael Jackson • Whitney Houston • Elvis Presley • Johnny Cash • Celine Dion • Barbra Streisand • Dolly Parton Columbia Records is a major American flagship recording label, under the ownership of Sony Music Entertainment - who is also their parent company. Columiba Records operates under the Columbia Music Group. As of October 2012, there are currently 85 recording artists signed to Columbia Records, making it the largest of the three flagship labels owned by Sony Music (followed by RCA Records with 77 artists and Epic Records with 43 artists). They also own two subsidiaries; Kemosabe Records and Small Giant Records. Columbia Label Group distributes the songs in the US. Sony Music Entertainment distributes outside the US. In recent years Columbia Records has seen a resurgence as a force in mainstream pop music. The current chairman is Rob Stringer and co-presidents are producer Rick Rubin and Steve Barnett. Columbia Records has sold over 10 million albums and 33 million songs recorded by the cast of the TV show Glee. In addition the label has seen its investment in Adele result in sales of over three million copies of her album 21 in 2011. Merchandise of the artists also creates a mass of income. They also aim to target undercover acts which they then develop into recording artists. They then market and promote there music through a wide range of platforms and formats; in order to give the artist the best chance of success. They also support artists who were on TV therefore they already have a fan base. Such as; One Direction, Little Mix and Olly Murs. This means that the artists already have a target audience and mass of support. Columbia knew that they’d make money before contracting them because they are already famous and people support them and want to follow them through their journey. Beyoncé is a huge title who everyone knows of. She has a part deal with Sony Columbia records which is structured more like a joint venture than a simple superstar royalty rate of 20%. A partnership-style setup would be particularly lucrative given her iTunes launch. Apple typically takes a 30% cut of sales, which would leave 70%, or a little over $11 per $15.99 album sold, for Beyoncé and her label. Take out the statutory 9.1 cents for publishing on each of the album’s 14 tracks (Beyoncé has songwriting credits on the album, but let’s assume her co-writers take the lion’s share) and you’re left with about $10 per sale. Beyoncé's fans are very dedicated and willing to pay the full price for the album-most artists have to have to pre-sell or hype albums by giving away singles on various websites, or streaming the album. Mainstream pop albums’ production budgets can easily soar into the millions, and Beyoncé’s includes videos for each track. This could push the total cost into the mid seven-figures. But even assuming that she co-financed a whopping $5 million budget, the album’s opening weekend alone would have earned Beyoncé and her label a multimillion-dollar profit to split. (source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2013/12/17/breaking-down-beyonces- record-breaking-album-launch/)
- 3. SUB POP RECORD LABEL Sub Pop was founded by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman in 1988. Sub Pop Records is a medium-sized independent record label based in Seattle, WA. Their early releases are by Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden and TAD – this was called the “grunge moment” which was ‘financially fruitful’. Later years saw record album releases from such moderately-to-somewhat-well-known artists as: Hot Hot Heat, Band of Horses, Fleet Foxes, Beach House, and Washed Out. The label is perhaps best known for unintentionally ending the recording careers of such longstanding and excellent bands as Dad Moon and The Jesus and Mary Chain. In 1995 the owners of Sub Pop sold a 49% stake of the label to the Warner Music Group – which is also their parent company. Sub Pop has three platinum records, Nivarna’s ‘Bleach’; Flight of the Conchord’s ‘Flight of the Conchords’; and The Postal Service’s ‘Give Up’. As well as one gold record, The Shins ‘Wincing the Night Away’. The Shins' ‘New Slang’ went gold, and The Postal Service's digital single for ‘Such Great Heights’ has gone platinum. On January 31, 2007, Sub Pop announced that, Wincing the Night Away, debuted at number two on the Billboard charts. With reported first week sales of 117,991 (35K in digital sales). This is the first time any album in Sub Pop history has ever charted in the top ten or broken 100,000 in the first week of sales. (source: subpop.com)
- 4. THE DIFFERENCE Universal music groups are able to saturate the market by marketing through the television, posters, billboards and on YouTube. Alternatively, Sub Pop cannot afford to use these advertising strategies and they do not have the resources to do so, also there is no space due to the saturation of the major companies. Therefore independent companies such as Sub Pop rely on word of mouth. They will often use Facebook and Twitter to spread the news of an upcoming artist and hope that the news is shared and spread and that is ignites discussion between people. This is exactly what Sub Pop did with ‘It’s time for fun’ by Goat. They also use reviews in order to get their artists noticed. Additionally, they will use sites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud, in order to show the public how good their artists are, they may also have a Vevo channel on YouTube. However, major record labels like Columbia will spend thousands on the production of music videos and on their advertising. They will often make a really fancy music video will create a ‘buzz’ and the song will sell because of the popular video. They may also encourage their artist to try something controversial in order to create a debate, such as ‘Smack my bitch up’ by Prodigy – which was published in the 90s and includes drugs and alcohol use and the protagonist was a woman. This song was very popular and made it to no.1 which shows that a controversial video helps lead to success. It shows that sometimes negative news is often good news for the record label. A large record company has a good reputation amongst the public so they will trust the label when they buy the album. People will then be more inclined to but from a well known label than an independent label. Major record labels will also make soundtracks to films this because a large audience of people will hear the song and want to buy it. An example of a soundtrack used in a movie would be Skyfall by Adele, which reached no. 1 in the charts for a number of weeks. Overall, Independent record companies have a very small budget because if they spend too much on the promotion of the song, they would make no profit. Therefore they advertise using cheap and effective ways such as social networking and parodies which influence people to view the original video. On the other hand, Major record companies have millions to spend on all aspects of the video and promotional techniques. Meaning that they can afford billboard adds, featuring the video on YouTube and in magazines, they can also afford to pay radios to play the song even a long time after the release date – Maroon 5 does this with their song ‘Sugar’. Major companies can also afford celebrity endorsement in their videos, which produces a secondary audience of their fans. They can spend millions on the promotion of the video because they know that the profit will be more. Although Independent companies can sometimes make more than anticipated with a ‘one hit wonder’ from a well-known artist. For example; Adele’s album ‘21’ was promoted by an Independent company called ‘XL’ which made a $37 million operating profit. (source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/adele-leads-record- label-to-67-million-profit/?_r=0