Let’s start with the advantages of a Major label:
No boundaries and limits – If you’re signed with a major and they are really interested in your promotion, then the sky is the limit. The budget and power of a major is far more great than indie’s. They can do whatever they’ll think is commercially profitable. They can launch you in space if they want to. They can release 30 million your CD-s at a time if they think it’s worth it. They always have the best options for high quality production, packaging, media, tours, etc.
Influence & Contacts – The publishers, managers and A&R working on major are welcome everywhere. For them every door is opened. They can summon best arrangers, video directors, hairdressers. They can influence the best media resources (a middle indie label would dance for the opportunity to have their band reviewed in Rolling Stone Magazine, when major-financed stars shine on its cover), best festivals, most popular TV shows and even the most visited websites.
Less problems to deal with – Another advantage of being signed to a major also is that as an artist all you have to do is to create and perform the music, stand still and look stupid to the photographers and don’t talk shit in interviews. The label handles everything else, especially business & promotion issues.
But not all that glitters is gold. Let’s now discuss the disadvantages of a Major label.
Cold-blooded approach to the artists - Major labels have a reputation for giving artists unfavorable deals and rewarding the business team greater than the artist who created the music. Very often the artist does not get to keep the rights or even the creative control over the music. And most probably as soon as they’ll suck out all the money-making potential from you, you’ll be fired. Majors always try to offer as low royalties as possible, wine over every cent given to you and most of all make you think that you are kept as a winning horse, which will be sent to a tanner as soon as it shows signs of getting old.
Hard to get noticed – Even when you’re signed. Majors used to sign a lot of artists, but if your product doesn’t fit in immediately, probably you’ll get dropped. So you still have to prove yourself even when you’re signed. But you may be signed for a definite time, but never get real love.
“More business - less music” strategy – One of the main arguments against major labels is that they choose to promote and finance formulaic, unoriginal music, in order to safely sell music that is known to have high demand rates. Their work is based far more upon strategic and business calculations, then music. In other words, they are heartless evil people, who don’t give a shit about music and think only about money. But they are very rich and powerful.
Now about the cons of signing an independent label.
As you guess, every advantage that major labels have is a disadvantage to independent labels. Independent labels mostly lack powerful distribution networks that would promote their products in stores. They don’t posses the capital of major and this has its impact on all of the independent label’s operations, from the product management to the artist promotion. As already stated, independent record labels do not have the same leverage and access to radio and the media as major labels do. Ultimately, these disadvantages make it the responsibility of independent labels to seek out or develop new ways of promoting records, simply in order to survive and compete with the major-backed labels.
But they have their Pros of course.
To overlook the business model, independent record labels are run as small business. In most cases, the label is run only by few people who work closely with each artist they sign. These builds close relationships and removes a lot of obstacles when you want to contact your producer or sales person or whoever you want directly. This is very hard in a major.
Most probably when indie label signs a contract with you, is because it likes your music and thinks that it suits the labels needs. They trust that your music can sell with their help, and work to promote you as an individual, not the suitable image that they often create for you in major labels. As a rule, Indie label contracts, as their relations and politics, are far more artist-friendly and give the artists more royalties and percentages than any major does. Frequently, this concerns artistic rights and copyright issues also. Indie labels often have a particular sound and genre and fans of artists signed to a certain label often trust it to deliver music that they like. This provides artist’s influence over a certain market.
This is it. As you see both sides have their Pros and Cons. Well, as you remember, many indie labels are backed up by majors. You can try to get signed by them and have the best of all possible worlds. But keep in mind that the more the indie label uses majors resources and finance, the more the major interferes in its politics and course. “And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you” – F. Nietzsche.
As you see, there is no definite solution of which way is better. It is a matter of approach, position and circumstances. Well, everyone makes his own choice. I’ll not state here which kind of label I personally support. This is an entirely private decision for a musician and I don’t want to influence it even in the most humble way.
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