• spacebirb@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Labels are an outdated concept that needs to die. Now that you can find any music from just a quick search artists shouldn’t have to rely on them, at least not as heavily, for advertising.

    • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      There was a very, very brief moment from about 2005 to 2011 or so where there was money to be made directly by artists on iTunes or the other music stores where the tracks were like 99 cents each.

      But people stopped buying as soon as Spotify became popular, and now any artist that wants to release on Spotify without a label still doesn’t make much money.

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Relatively “large” truly independent bands like KNOWER are starting to give true home recording a base of proof of functionality.

      Power to bandcamp.

    • abhibeckert@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Artists aren’t forced to sign a contract with a label. They do it because they want to.

      They do it because the label will often invest a million dollars in the artist upfront before the songs are even available for the public to stream.

      Good recording studios are expensive to hire. And if you want a video track to go with it… those are even worse.

    • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Ehh, you’ve got a different but similar problem these days. Before, it was hard to get the word out so even finding new bands was difficult. Now, there are so many artists that you’ve got to find a way to stand out. Still need marketing. That’s what labels provide.

      • Plopp@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You don’t need to give up the rights to your music to a third party for them to do marketing or handling legal matters for you. You just need to pay them for their services. And you should be able to choose from several competitors in the market, based on what they offer and what you want/need/can afford. So yeah, record labels shouldn’t exist anymore.

        • nihth@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          It’s not needed, but for some reason artists keep signing, so there is probably something they provide that makes it worth it