Last Of The Record Labels!!

[50cal]

I made a statment regarding the end of labels as we know it and
MINDSET responded with

Strong statement. The record label will always have something that indie artists don't have. A big budget. Reality is, if that were to happen, than the whole industry would collapse. Then you just have a million musicians cluttered in a small space that you would have to sift through. Then, what would happen is that all the musicians income would probably decrease sufficiently and then the extinction of paid musicians lol.

50cal says

why do labels exist? what purposes do they serve? I will keep it short..
Labels supplied a demand for consumers to purchase music from all corners of the globe supplying the promotion and distribution needs, with their financial resources that individual artists dont have....and so on.

Now a label would normally put out a handfull of releases a year in hopes that a few would do big numbers to raise their profit margin from the loss they take on the rest....We all have taken note of record stores closing such as tower records/wherehouse /etc etc...you may have also noticed a decline in sales in the industry across all genres...though there are a few artsist with the big sales.

So whats happening? Is music that bad that no one is buying like they were only a few years ago?I think not(although with the widespread use of cheap software their is alot of bad music....even some retail releases)Are we in a recession?Is this the next depression?Although Im far from rich myself I think our economy is doing alright(of course this could be debated) All Im saying decrease in sales isnt probably due to our economy.

So what is it? I personally beleive filesharing on the net is the biggest culprit and even though the R.I.I.A(Is that the correct acronym?) crack down on moms and pop stores from selling independent releases without barcodes or manufacture adress.Remember a few years back(probably about 6 yrs my memory aint what it used to be) the big crackdown and lawsuit with napster...the music industry still flourished..but filesharing is becoming much more common then at that time.More housholds now have a computer compared to 10 years ago...maybe even 5 years ago.
So why do I think the Big machine(labels) as we know it is gonna change.Just like alot of companies are doing its my opinion that they will consolidate and buy each other out...and so there will be less big labels..imagine if interscope bought everyone out....artists releases will be by priority meaning the known artists like 50 cent and eminem and Dr dre and game...the proven best sellers(I dont know just an example) they will come out before the new artists and being they dont wanna compete with themselves 50 cent and dre wont be released in the same month..so this means less artists will be put..less resources for artist development...now also remember as i gave examples of dre/game/50 rember the consolidation..well fantasia needs to be released mariah carey/jay-z(get my point)
So if you remeber when I said this

Labels supplied a demand for consumers to purchase music from all corners of the globe supplying the promotion and distribution needs, with their financial resources that individual artists dont have....

well more and more sales will be downloads so artists arent gonna need the distribution...It doesnt cost hardly anything to have your own online store and can even let other sites ell your music...so that aint gonna cost lil or nothing..You can afford online promotion alot can be done with investing time by personally spreading the word on major music forums...(or any site forums)wich will only get bigger.......so why get signed sit on the shelf..when it can be done for lil or nothing?..these views are just my opinion...

 

[Fieva]

I see where you're coming from, but I'm more inclined to agree with Mindset. Yes the industry is ugly. If they're not churning out more and more bullshit a day and taking more and more creativity away from artists then they're bitching about how much money they're losing from filesharing.

I remember the whole Napster situation. I remember Napster getting shut down only to reemerge as a paid site. You know damn well that when you see folks with mp3s they don't have the actual album usually.

However, it takes money to make money. That's why you see all these cats out there now putting out bullshit. They're being budgeted by the industry to do so. Shit ain't entertainment anymore. It's business. And you can be as creative as you want, but if you don't understand that, it's gonna be tough making it on your own. You can't take shit to heart about it either. If you had enough money to do something about it then you could....but we know if you're looking for a deal, that's not the case. You just have to know how to play the game man. Since you brought up Shady/Aftermath...let's look at that.

Eminem comes out with some of the corniest mainstream shit I've ever heard. Funny as hell but corny sometimes. But then listen to most of his shit that NEVER hits radio and it's like a complete 180 flip. Nothing wrong with that...he makes light of what the industry tells him to do in order to make profits. He did that and now he more or less calls a lot of his own shots. Compare some of the radio cuts he's had throughout the years to what he does now.

Shit just ain't the way it used to be...hip hop is still about expression (in its many forms) but rap these days is BUSINESS. If you want in it for money, you may as well label yourself a rapper. If you do it to say what you got to say the way you wanna say it, you MIGHT be able to label yourself hip-hop.

I might catch shit for this but check out some of the people in the forum...you got folks like Change, Killah Trakz and Slept on Fam that's straight hip-hop. Then you got folks like Gully Jewelz, Red Kross, and C.D. of SSL who you would consider straight rap (in different forms, but still straight rap usually. Then you can throw other folks in there like myself and Soul B who can go one way or the other, just depends on what we feel like doing.

Check the HM Compilation for more examples of what I'm talking about.
myspace.com/hustlemagicmusic

 

[50cal]

appreciate the feedback....I personally think know one truly knows the future of music including myself...i hope it doesnt go the route I described...I just entertaining thoughts of possibilities..i cant say for certainty..but I may have bought more c.ds and tapes then anyone on this forum ( not bragging or saying that makes my input more credible)...I roughly have about 600-700 cassetes..all rap no copies all originals....c.ds about 500-600..all originals...I also have about 200 R&B cassettes all original and about 200 R&B c.ds all original..I also have mixtapes as well as mixtape c.ds.....and I definatley dont buy as much as I used to...My c.ds and tapes there is no duplicates such as I dont have a DR DRE chronic on tape and c.d its either or....I guess I must love rap...at least i used to...its funny cause the shape rap is in today....Reality is it dont matter i have enough music for the rest of my life.and be happy with it.

 

[Mindset]

I believe that Record labels won't die. They will just change their business practices to cope with the ever changing society & it's technology. It's been like that for a hundreds of years. From the earlier writers who sold their sheet music, and the salesman (first artists) who performed that piece of music to a client. The very first companies, that we consider labels, were long ago. Tech changed, people changed, music changed, but the business will always be there. The more indies you have, the more the diamonds of indies go by un-noticed. The brute power of the industry leaders, and it's many Zero's backing it, will always bring that certain artist above the rest, even if they suck.
Then it will be the same as the CD era, the Cassette era, FM/AM radio, Phono's, sheet music etc. To survive, adapt.

Imagine. 1 website, 8 million indie artists. It either flops bad (soundclick, mp3.com etc), or the price for advertisement sky rockets to numbers so high that the average Joe won't be able to afford it. I believe, that we have already overcome and won the battle against downloads. You have sites like soundclick, that have hundreds of thousands of artists in there, that probably half of them are not making a dime. Only the ones who grind on it. It shows that it cannot be done successfully. The internet has thousands upon thousands of sites to buy mp3's, yes it's easy to put your music into some online stores, but what's putting your music in a store, nothing. It doesn't mean a damn thing if you don't have your following and a bunch of money .