Donovan Banks

The music industry has changed quite a lot over the last few decades.In the past, a musician or band was "discovered" by a record executive, was signed to the label and was then paid to make music.

Financially it was a tricky affair. While the famous image would be the band, they couldn't really make all the money. The record label had to make something, after all they put up the money for the record to be made, video's and promotions to be done. They had to recoup that money somehow.

So it was a problem, where the labels and musicians appeared to be working against each other. Labels were made out to be big, bad, corporate, greedy dragons that ate up all the hard work form the poor, tired old musician. It's hard work performing live show, doing interviews and being adored. Sure they had the creative product but the label had the vessel to sell that product. Without either, there was nothing.

There were also a lot of independent labels cropping up. It's not much of a phenomenon, as there is money to be made, and these smaller labels are operating as subsidiaries to the bigger labels, who in turn are acting as publishers and go-betweens. The basic model is still there though as the label and the band working together to create and sell a product.

Very recently bands have begun taking the marketing on for themselves. It's not as easy going as they hoped for. There are a lot of funds to be generated for recording of demo's and albums. Making of videos and publicity material. Contacting the press and venues for performances. There is all this work that needs to go into being a band on top of creating great music to sell.

I'm glad that is the case. We will hopefully see a bit of understanding for the record labels and how hard they must have worked presenting packages to the public. It should also guide musicians to be more responsible, not only with their product, but with their conduct. Imagine how far the Beatles would have got with their albums while they were stoned to high hills if there was no label pushing them to perform? They would have been wasted talent.
Perhaps now, we will see a host of musicians coming to the fore who really WANT to be there. Not just people who were stumbled upon in a recording studio singing a song for his mother and became one of the worlds biggest stars by near accident.