Record Labels, Online Communities and General Chaos
Originally published at Project 2357. You can comment here or there.
Ok so my home state is still largely on fire. To top it off I just sent 5 people down there on a tour to 75 odd schools for work and haven't heard from anyone since Friday so tomorrow could be fun.
Record Labels are fun!
So I have pretty much decided to go down that path that is the record label. I'm signed to a label called Elektrax Progressive which is based in Sydney Australia and minus the fact that I am pretty sure I haven't sold anything or at least sold that much I'm doing ok. of course now I am trying to get onto a bigger label. Why would I want to do this when every big name artist on the face of the planet is ditching their label and going the other way as fast as they can? Well cause the thing they don't tell you is you need a support network. Now it's fine if you NIN or Radio Head and have the biggest and most devoted fan bases on the face of the planet and lets face it Reznor and York are probably two of the most flawed human beings of on the face of the planet your probably not going to get very far.
So while I hate the whole label system I am going to give my reasoning why labels are actually useful.
1. They are a measure of success
Getting your track on Itunes are half a dozen other online download stores is getting easier. Services like track it down are doing great things for indi artists and I have to say I like what they do. What tune core doesn't provide is a crap filter. I really hate to think how many 16 years olds there are out there who produce something in Garage band, think it's a hit and then try to sell it.
One of the things I have learnt recently is that I was probably no where near where I needed to be technically when I got signed. My early releases were horrible. they were bad. they really really sucked. I may think the same about my current work in a 6 months time but for now I am going to say it's a hell of a lot better. What the label has done for me is filter out the crap from the gold. Simon my A&R rep sends stuff back when it's not good enough and a lot of the time this is needed. Artists have a tendency to see dollar signs light up once they think something is finished. 999,999 out o 1,000,000 times this is not the case.
2. They give you a network
One of the thing my label has which is really quite handy is a mailing list for all it's artists to communicate. We bounce ideas off each other a lot, we share each others work and we help promote each other. I got handed this I didn't have to build it up though a social networking site. I know when I am onto something good and when I'm not.
The other handy thing is that it gives me a remix network. The benefit of this is that it allows me to share my fans (not that I have any) with other artists and vice versa. My fans become your fans, your fans become my fans and off we go. I'm just wondering at this point how cool it would be if epic fu did a remix of digg nation? Zadi and Steve hosting diggnation while Kevin and Alex host epic fu.
either way I think you get the point.
I'm not saying that you can't do well on your own but those that have are far and few in the context of the size of the amount of content out there. Also what works for me may not work for you.
Onto my other frustration
I started Project 2357 with the idea of creating a video website, the economic model failed and off I came crashing down from high atop the thing up high. the bump on my head hurts. Graduating, burying relatives and taking the first holiday in 3 years didn't help either. The holiday was nice though.
So any way I have started up again. trying something new. Though just not sure. I have built a system for people to post what ever on now I am just sitting back and seeing what people post.
so on that note I am cross posting this over and seeing what happens.
I'll stop typing now cause I know TubeJay will put up a comment the size of my Strategy final from uni last year.