Do You Need A Label?

Good morning, I hope you’re having a great start of the day. Today I want to share with you my thoughts on music labels. Do you need labels in this time as an artist? Or should you do everything independently? And what are the pro’s and cons of working with labels? Thank you in advance for giving me some of your time today. It means the world to me. If I forget something you might want to add or you have some other feedback, I would love to hear it. I’m trying to learn as much as possible so I can get better at this and hopefully make this as valuable to other people as I can. You can hit me up on WhatsApp. I put my number in the description. All right, let’s dive into it.

So do you need a label deal as an artist? The short answer in my opinion is no, you don’t. And I think that if you’re starting out, signing a label deal in this time can be a very bad idea. What do I mean with a label deal? When I say label deal, I mean some type of exclusive deal, where you can only release with that label and you give them a percentage, usually between 50 to 80 percent of ownership to the masters of your music. Years ago, labels were maybe the only way to reach the masses. Because they had the contacts to the radio shows, they had the budgets to set up big promotion campaigns and produce music videos etcetera. They could help you distribute your music. You couldn’t do that yourself. So then it made sense as an artist to try to get noticed by a label and get signed. If you wanted to reach masses, and you didn’t have some super creative strategies as an entrepreneur, this was probably the way to do it.

But a lot has changed since then. Now all music consumption has moved to online, digital. Nobody cares about CD’s, only maybe some super fans who want something physical. But the vast majority of people just listen to music through a streaming service. And as an artist, you can distribute that music to those services yourself. So you don’t need a label to help you with that. Music video’s became less important for promotion, because people don’t watch TV anymore. So you don’t need a label for that. And if you want to have a music video on YouTube, equipment has gotten much better and cheaper, so you can produce that yourself. You probably know someone who can shoot a video for you. And video’s don’t need to be big budget anymore, they used to be like movies. It’s all about if it grabs attention. And you don’t need a label for that.

The radio has become less important. Because everyone has their own channel and can broadcast anything they want, whenever they want. Of course there’s a lot of people trying to get attention, too much people, so the official channels are valuable in the sense that they have credibility. And help people filter out all the noise and only show them quality. So it’s helpful to get on those official channels but you don’t need a label to get there. You can create your own buzz. And even better than buzz, is a steady, durable base of supporters. The only thing is, for most people, this is going to take time. And most people don’t feel like they have time. Everything needs to happen, fast. People need to get rich and successful fast.

And this is where labels, especially major labels capitalise on young talented people. Because they can offer them an amount of money upfront as an advance, an amount that is a lot to a young broke artist who needs money and wants to be famous. But completely its a completely insignificant amount to a corporation like that. And then the artist signs away 80% of the master rights to everything they make. Which means that they don’t own it. And they are not going to make any money from their music because they need to recoup their advance first. From their share, which is only 20%. So this will take forever. Now, maybe if you have an incredibly high output of quality music this could go a little faster. But a lot of the times a major label is going to stand in the way of you doing that. You need their approval for everything you release. And every release needs to be super official. You can’t just drop a song with a video every week if you would want that. And a high output strategy like that works much better than the one album a year strategy if you are not famous yet. Because music in a way became content and is consumed much faster. And you can increase your chances with volume.

So that’s major labels. Signing with them, bad idea I would say. Then you have indie labels who usually don’t do full artist deals but sign projects. Like you can release a song or an EP or an album with them. Those usually take 50% of your master rights, which is half, which is a significant amount. In my opinion, working with indie labels can have a benefit, because they have platforms in niches. They have fan bases. So releasing with those is more like a collaboration. Your project is being endorsed by a more credible source and reaches the followers of that label and you introduce your listeners to them and provide them with art to display. This is a two way benefit. A downside of this is that you don’t fully own your song anymore. So you don’t have the right anymore to do whatever you want with it. And often the label does have that right. This is fine for most artists who just want the song to stay the song and aren’t planning to do anything else with it. But if you do want to keep the options for your track open, to be able to leverage it in multiple ways. Keeping 100% ownership can be smart. Also 50% is a lot to sign away. Especially if you already collaborate with other artists on the song, then you’ll get 25% or less. And also, I’ve seen this happen a lot. That artists try to get on labels, by changing the sound of their music to what the labels would want to release. I believe in the long term this can be detrimental to your business as an independent artist. Because the new people that get introduced to you by the label are going to know you for making the sound that fits that label, and they are going to expect you keep doing that. So it’s going to be harder to really build your own brand and create a lasting strong group of supporters that love you for you.

So releasing with indie labels has some pro’s and cons, depending on what you want. Other than major labels who only have cons in my eyes.

Now for the long term in my opinion the best strategy is the 100% independent route. I believe this is going to create the longest lasting success and the most fulfilment in the end. If you choose this way. It’s going to mean that it’s going to take a long time before you can really monetise your music and can rely financially on it. I don’t think 5 years of consistent output is an unreasonable estimation of how much time and effort you would need to put into it. But if you do it, it’s going to pay off big time. And maybe you shouldn’t even put a time horizon like 5 years on it and should just decide that your are an artist who releases consistently forever. That way you can never lose. So this is my strategy now, I’m staying 100% independent. I might release with an indie label here and there, but only if the sound of the label and the sound of my artist project are a good fit.

So these were my thoughts on labels in this time. Thank you so much for giving me your time and attention. I’m having a lot of fun with this podcast, but I also know that there’s a lot of improvements that can be made. So if you have any comments or feedback for me please let me know, I would love to learn from you and get better. Because I want this not to be only fun for me, I’m hoping it can be helpful to other independent artists one day. You can hit me up on WhatsApp. I put my number in the description. And I wish you an amazing day, much love.