I don't hate record labels. I don't even dislike them. Maybe I'll be seen as a fool or a sucker but there you go. Without record labels, how would we have heard the great, varied and valuable music from all over this world of the last 120 years, let alone in the great quantities that we have ? Prior to the advent of recording companies, you either had to go and see music live, or it was passed down and preserved via the generations, meaning you'd never hear something the same way twice, at your leisure, in your space. If you had a piano in the house/shack you might get sheet music but pretty much the same applied.
It was pretty interesting that radio and records {put out by the record labels....} both came into being fairly closely to one another in history coz the one definitely fed the other.
Record labels have actually given us so much, as well as being forcing houses for so much wonderful technology - technology that is now relatively affordable to all kinds of people that wouldn't have had a chance 40 years ago to record their own stuff. What I mean by a forcing house is this; as the race to make better and more original recordings gathered momentum, various people had ideas and designed gadgets that could be used on records that the labels put out. The electric guitar and amplifier, for example, would have existed irrespective of whether people actually recorded them. But there would have been no sense in coming up with multitracking were there no recording. Ok, I suppose one could play live to already prepared stuff....but that ain't the way it went down.
Producers, tape ops, engineers and the like, not to mention all their gadgets and modus operandi {that many of us benefit from} would not have existed without record labels. And whatever people want to think, making money is not the sole purpose for their existence. I just do not believe that. Do the proprietors of labels want to make money ? Of course they do. They always did, they always will and frankly, it would be, in my opinion, stupid, no, not even stupid, steeeeeee-oppid, to expect that to not be a factor. How many of us would go into a business of our own and not want to make money ? How would we eat ?!? So often I hear people grizzle about how labels are only interested in money not art......like many artists have not been ! What do you say to a musician who says "I do this to get rich and get laid and get wasted" but who happens to make beautiful music along the way ?
But I digress.
I don't pretend that record labels, or more to the point, certain people within those labels, are or have been pure hearted saints and angels. I don't dispute that the doggy deeds of many of the labels have given rise to all kinds of shenanigans {ranging from shitty music to ripoffs to murder}. Of course there has been and continues to be, a whole heap of shit attached to the biz. But one could say that about pretty much anything. Government. Religion. Sport. Family. Work. Armed forces. Medical services. The list could go on. None of these things are intrinsically wrong or nasty. Loads of people and philosophies and practices within them are, however, a different story.
I prefer to balance the good that the labels have brought during their development with their negatives, rather than lopsidedly veer to the negatives. It's perhaps not the easier path to take but I just think I'd be dumb to not see the good in something that has played such a major part in my existence thus far. Ultimately, maybe they've even provided the seed that has allowed us 'home wreckers' {merci, monsiuer Glen} to actually exist and enjoy....
Let the feasting begin !
Then I read the other replies.... 
