Record Labels

A Record Label is a registered business which carries the responsibility of  representing clients ( the musicians signed to their label) and promoting them and managing them in order to help them gain music recording sales. This role covers the processes of achieving copyrights for recordings, and also producing, manufacturing and distributing the records to sellers and corporations. Generally, it is the record label who discovers the artist and signs them to their label to allow them to produce their music under them and gain sales.

This screenshot from wikipedia shows the recent change in the main record labels and how big corporations such as Sony and Warner are expanding- meaning that they can guarantee chart success for their artists- with large budgets for promotion and video production.

Indie VS Major Record Labels

 MAJOR: SONY Music Entertainment

Sony Music Entertainment is owned by the American Music subsidiary of the Japanese conglomorate SONY, The enterprise was first created in 1929, and after many sales of ownership, it was finally renamed to SME in 199, and is currently the worlds second largest music company- with Universal MG being the biggest- making a yearly revenue of $4.89bn. The enterprise consists of 21 separate record labels across many genres.

Current Featured SME Artists

Some of Young Turks current artists- all british

                                           Young Turks- Indie

The Young Turks is a small record label based in London, England which was created as an imprint of the larger XL recordings,to specifically work alongside small Electronic/Alternative artists in order to help them sell records. Among those signed to YT are world reccknowned artists such as Sampha, SBTRKT, The XX an FKA Twigs. The label was started in 2004 by Caius Pawson, a 19yr old DJ, and by 2009, he had managged to helpThe XX sell 1 million copies of their debut album. Unlike SME, XL doesnt cover complete production and distribution, although it does help artists host gigs and paries to help promote them.




















Unsigned Artist: Broken Hands

Bands and artists do not necessarily need to be signed to a record label to be successful, infact, no artist starts of with a label- they must play small gigs and release promotional music before they are noticed by music scouts, who refer them to an agent of a record company, and if all works out, the artist signs an album deal.

One band who are currently unsigned are 'Broken Hands'- a british indie rock band who have only recently (in the last 4 years) come together. As unsigned artists, they have no record deal and have to sell all music and get their own gigs indepedently, however, as they are becoming more popular- with thousands of followers on their facebook page, they are coming closer to being signed. Broken hands have already released many singles, and played at the BBC 1 Introducing stage at Reading festival 2014- further increasing their popularity. Being unsigned gives the artist much more freedom and control over their music and performances, however it makes it much harder to make money or get a show.

The Broken Hands facebook page- their main form of promotion