Aim of the lesson; we are going to look at a particular type of music institution- A record label

What is a record label?

A record label is someone who signs new and upcoming artists to make new music for a specific audience, they are the financial backers and supporters of that artist and inject money for music related schemes.

What do Record Labels do?

Provides the funds to produce and make music, provides the funds for the costs of the studio work unless they are a subsidiary and have access to the studios. The music record label also should try to aim advertisements to make the artist more known in general.

Music Labels should also....

-Talent scout to finds the new and upcoming artists.

-Manage the band and the artists.

-Produce, manufacture and distribute records.

-Marketing and promotion via music videos etc.

-Copyright the material of the artist.

There are two types of record labels- Independent/minor and Major Record labels

Major

There are now only three main major record companies and they produce at one time 75% of the singles that in the charts. They are: Sony BMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.

Minor/ Independent

A smaller company that operates without the funding of the major three.

Many Big Artists start their solo careers on minor record labels.

Minor companies are preference in some cases as they allow freedom and control of music offering more diversity in the world of music.

Subsidiary's SONY Examples

RCA-Mainstream pop and RnB

Christina Ag..

Alexandra Burk

-Pink

-Justin Timberlake

COLUMBIA- Rock and Folk

-Editors

-Foo Fighters

-Bruce Springsteen

-Kings of Leon

Minor Labels-

Domino- Artic Monkeys

Manage Records- Arcade Fire

4AD- Bon Iver- "Skinny Love"

Lost Highway- Ryan Adams

Rough Trade- White stripes

Bastille

-Released two songs in June 2010.

-Laura Palmer EP in early 2011

-None of the songs charted

December 2011---->EMI-----> Virgin Records-----> They got a song in the top 40 "Flaws".

Universal then took over and in September in had the contract of Bastille to play with in which the owner did making the band one of his focusses. Between then and April 2003 the band was re-imaged and was re-branded to become more mainstream. The next album released 4th single "Pompeii" which hit number 2 on the charts and the album they released in March 2013 went straight to 1.