Indie route VS Major route

[Miriam Boulos]

Do you think that artists nowadays are more prone to take the indie road than to sign with a major record label?

Topic

[Peter]

A lot of artists will say fuck majors, they suck — but, if given the opportunity, they’d probably grab it in a heartbeat.

Majors are focused on the bottom line and to their stakeholders — therefore, they need to generate a lot of revenue — that’s why ‘popular’ music is what they primarily focus on — even though only 20% of their catalogue really brings in 80% of their revenue.

Indies are more favorable with their deal structure with artists. More like 50/50 splits — but, due to size, many can’t offer to marketing power of a major — to that end, there are plenty of Indie labels that are quite massive in their reach and support.

Indie labels also have that ‘cool’ factor to them.

Many artists in that are playing in the Web3 and NFT world are finding they don’t need a label at all. Some have made more money in one year selling NFTs and their music that way. The long-term effects and success of that is still TBD. The space is still so no and constantly evolving with platforms and services coming and going that it’s a real grind to constantly do-it-yourself — also, the market share is not there, yet — we’ll have to wait and see

[Author]

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