The Problem with Major Labels
Major labels are great at pouring gasoline on the fire, but they’re dreadful at starting it.
By: Anonymous
Growing up as an aspiring musician, signing a record deal was synonymous with making it in the music industry to me. The day you got signed was the day you became a household name and your grandkids were set for life. The truth is, getting signed by a major label is a hell of a lot closer to the first step in making it than it is the last. I’d know, because I’m still there.
It’s important to note what a label actually does. Despite the luster of signing to a record label, the average person probably couldn’t tell you what they actually do. According to my contract with X Records, they are responsible for funding the creation of my records, and facilitating distribution and marketing. There was once a time that their ability to do this meant they controlled what music reached the public and got popular, because doing so was prohibitively expensive and inaccessible. That’s not true anymore.
The post-Napster plummet in revenue from record sales has been well-documented and discussed since the early aughts, but the bigger crisis for labels has been the decentralization of the music industry that’s run concurrently. Music equipment is now cheaper than filling your car with a full tank of gas, and you can distribute your music to most of the world with as many clicks as it takes to order a pizza. Suddenly, the artist can decide what music gets made, and the audience dictates what becomes popular. In 12th grade, I posted a few tracks to Soundcloud from my bedroom, and by the end of the semester I was racking up millions of plays and making more money than my teachers. This phenomenon has become even furthermore streamlined with the rise of Tik Tok, where the once-hyperbolic “overnight success” has become a realistic timeline. So what value do labels provide now?
In the 90’s, the advance from your first deal was likely the first check you ever got from music that had a comma in it. Now, labels are only signing projects that are already making money. But if artists are already making money and building fanbases independently, why would they ever agree to partner with a label and give up the majority of their royalties and ownership?
The answer is reputation. The idea of a record deal as the pinnacle of success is so ingrained in the minds of artists and fans that it almost feels obligatory to sign one. It lends automatic legitimacy to your career, and every artist you look up to did it too. Almost everyone falls for their pitch hook line and sinker like I did. I remember telling my Dad,
“I have no idea what they’re gonna do for me, but when will I ever get another chance to sign with X Records?”
Unfortunately, after you pop the champagne and sign on the dotted line (or submit the Docusign, as I did in April 2020), the futility of being on a label bears itself. It’s a barrage of iMessage groups and email threads of 30 somethings instructing you to do exactly what you were doing before you signed, while occasionally contributing their “creative input” and “industry knowledge”.
All of this with the constant promise that “once something starts moving, that’s when we can really get started.” But even when you finally get something “moving” all on your own, the goalposts have shifted. Since signing, I’ve had two songs that have racked up millions of likes and tens of millions of streams - songs that would have landed me a million dollar deal from my own label - that barely register as a blip since I’m already signed. The label is just betting that one of the 50 acts they signed this year will manage to become the next Post Malone or Olivia Rodrigo, churning out consistent chart-topping records. And they’re usually right. They can sign as many artists as it takes to land their next superstar cash cow, because it costs them next to nothing to distribute records now and the money they make from Lil Nas X will more than cover any money they lost signing everyone else.
Ultimately, you’re closer to the first step of blowing up than the last after you sign because you quickly realize that nothing has changed aside from the liner notes of your songs and how your high school friends treat you when you’re back home. You still have to do all the leg work of a modern independent artist to get your music heard and make any sort of real money. Having said that, I’d still take the music industry in its current form any day of the week over trying to sneak a demo tape into the office of some big wig A&R at Capitol Records while his secretary is on lunch break. And even though it’s a bitter pill to swallow that your record label is as good at getting your music out there as a 16 year old on Tik Tok, you can wipe your tears with the three hundred thousand dollars they gave you upfront. Plus, any artist worth their salt can tell you that the real value in signing a record deal is learning that you should never sign a record deal.