Hard-rocker band Radiohead's recording contract
with EMI/Capitol Records
expired in 2003. The group has since foregone
the traditional record label to handle
recording, distribution, and marketing as they
see fit. For the release of their seventh
album In Rainbows in late 2007, they allowed
online consumers to name their own
purchase price. According to New Music Express,
the average price paid was about
$10.
The Eagles also went it alone without major
record company support for their
2007 album release Long Road Out of Eden. The
band formed an exclusive deal with
mass merchant Wal-Mart to distribute the
disc.
Back in 2005, country superstar Garth Brooks
struck an exclusive multiyear deal
with Wal-Mart stores for his entire catalog,
which he took with him after his Capitol
Nashville agreement was mutually
terminated.
Established artists are not the only ones
choosing to forge their own path, rather
than signing on with a traditional major record
company. Delbert McClinton and
John Hiatt released albums through indie label
New West Records. Ani DiFranco,
Michelle Shocked, Jonatha Brooke, and Amee Mann
have formed their own labels.
Mann, her husband Michael Penn, and their
manager Michael Hausman even formed
United Musicians, an organization that provides
support services to indie artists.
Some artists leave or forgo major labels
because of creative and financial differ-
ences. The expensive overhead at major record
companies means that many artists
must sell a million records before earning any
profits. First, they must recoup costs
for recording, marketing, promotional
tours--including limo rides and dinner for
record executives working on their behalf--and
other accumulated expenses.
Considering that the artist is recouping these
expenses at a rate of about 50 cents to
$1 per album, they may never get out of debt to
the label. Contrast that with an inde-
In the fall of 2007, industrial rock band Nine
Inch Nails left its major
record company and made plans to release all
future recordings in a
manner similar to Radiohead. Nine Inch Nails'
Trent Reznor wrote on
the band's web site: "I've waited a long time
to be able to make the fol-
lowing announcement: as of right now Nine Inch
Nails is a totally free
agent, free of any recording contract with any
label." He went on to
say, "I have been under recording contracts for
18 years and have
watched the business radically mutate from one
thing to something
inherently very different and it gives me great
pleasure to be able to
finally have a direct relationship with the
audience as I see fit and
appropriate."
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