Discussion: Record Labels

Radiohead an English rock band announced that they had dropped their record label and will be selling their own content via their website. Madonna, Oasis and Jamiroquai quickly followed suite announcing that they also are dropping their record label. In one week Radiohead sold 1.2 million songs at $8 each.

Do you think that this will be the way of the future for already successful bands?

I can see record labels working well for new bands with little to no fan base. Once you have a fan base though a record label really does not add any value for musicians. I think we will see more and more artists moving away from their record labels because of the success of Radiohead.

Do you think they could have sold more if they had a record label?

A record label takes care of marketing and distribution of a new album. They of course do it at a hefty cost. Personally I think a record label would have produced a similar amount of sales for Radiohead. The problem of course is that Radiohead would have most likely made less. Also the consumer would have paid more for the CD. The real looser here is the record labels and music stores.

Will this put music stores out of business?

I don’t think so. Music stores that sell CD’s know that the industry is changing and have started to focus more on selling DVD’s and Video Games. The last time I went to HMV I noticed that less then a 1/3 of the store was actually devoted to selling music.

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