What constitutes a record label?

[~David Vesel]

As I find myself inexorably zigzagging to this fate, I must ask the question, what is a record label?

Is is just a mechanism for making physical product? A promotional vehicle?

I am on the cusp of making a new label, Purple Note Records.

The primary outlet of this label will be making Ampcast CDs for synthpop artists. I wonder if this is enough, or if people expect something further.

There are quite a few artists here signed to labels. What do they do for you? What are your expectations? What are your limitations?

A potential label proprietor wants to know....

[~emma_stormhatt]

Hello David, I find myself asking me the same question. We have just started Shadowplay Electronica (by the way the compilation Electronica in Shadows is comming along). We are releasing this compilation. We have released our own album and will this spring release [brus]. We are also getting some help from Sean Patric (IntrospecT). But we are still wondering what wakes a label. A state of mind, a minimum number of bands, contracts, employes, stocks??? If you interested what we have done so far go to
www.shadowplayelectronica.com

Martin

[~Sean X]

Well, I dinf this is a strange topic for me to be discussing since I am a self-professed label-founder. And because I really don't do many of those things that people think labels do.

However, when I was signed to a major, I learnt the truth about what a label is. I was shocked.

Labels do not manufacture a CD. CD pressing plants do this.

Labels don't distribute. Distributors do this.

You've probably worked out that the Label doesn't record the actual albums either. There are recording studios for that.

Same for all the other functions you'd think Labels do.... you'll still have to pay a separate Manager, PR Agent, etc, etc.

So what do they do? They lend money. Think of Records Labels as lending institutions for musicians. Think of A&R people as loans officers - who assess whether your chances of bringing a return on investment are good, or if you're emotionally stable enough to deal with the consequences when it doesn't happen.

Think of the contract as nothing more than a loan. Every single bit of money you get from the label will eventually be repaid back to them with interest. The advance you keep (the Publishing deal) doesn't come from the Label. Labels only LEND money.

And think of Major Labels as the kind of banks who realise they make more by foreclosing on bankrupts than they do by collecting pennies slowly. There's a lot of poor artists out there, totally in hock to their labels....

Is my cynicism showing? LOL

[~Brand New Idol]

No you actually summed it up exactly how it is, heh

[~chriswdc]

Sean, that is truly depressing, yet enlightening.