Difference between indie music and commercial music
With the advent of the internet, most music labels are confronted with a big problem. How to balance the costs of promoting artists and their songs against a backdrop of plummeting record sales. These labels are pointing fingers at the easy accessibility of songs, especially those yet to be released, on the internet. This is where independent labels are smiling off to the banks because the internet, especially social media platforms have become an easy way to promote their artists. Promoting an artist song costs so much money, especially when you have to pay big time radio stations for airplay. Independent labels on the other hand rely on local radio stations, for example college or public radios, who are geared towards indie songs anyway. This is because independent songs are basically unique, in the sense that they are not conformist or mainstream. In this way you can see that independent records seem to have a higher prospect of making it in today’s world than the so called big corporations.
One another difference between independent records versus commercial records (or songs made by big musical corporations) is that indie records have been wise enough to target a category of people who find it abominable to just go on the internet and download songs for free. These are usually the grown-ups who have a deep sense of appreciation for hard work and thus will pay for what they have.
The third difference between independent records and commercial or mainstream records is that independent record labels grant their artists complete artistic freedom; they have control over the content and sound of their music. Commercial records usually target sales and would just put anything out there that is guaranteed to bring back huge returns. Usually this is understandable considering how much they invest into promoting a single artist or their albums. Thus most musicians are beginning to form their own labels so that they can express themselves exactly the way they want. Self expression is the drive for independent artists.
Another remarkable difference between these two labels is that there is too much bureaucracy with the commercial or big time record labels. The artist sign contracts whose fine prints they did not take time to fully understand. For example artists signed to these bodies make a very tiny percentage from the sale of a single album and sometimes they have to sell in millions to get into the big life. This is because their royalties also cover for their studio time and all those wonderful benefits like the limo rides and designer outfits they get. Independent labels on the other hand might sell only thousands of copies of their albums but they share half of the profits with their artists most of the time. And they could also sell albums at their concerts which is a wonderful business incentive. Independent record labels are very reasonable where it comes to budgeting and expenditures and thus in this way the maximise profit and minimise costs.
Another wonderful thing about independent labels is that they allow them artists to own the rights to their songs unlike the big music corporations who will buy the copyrights to a song and might choose not to release it. In this way, the artist’s dream is being hampered by the decision of his/her label. Meanwhile he cannot even sign unto other labels until the stipulated time in the agreement has expired.
Because of how huge their promotional or marketing strategies are, commercial labels are not that flexible to changes in the music market. Before they can anticipate and change gears, for example when an album is losing ground, they would have made major losses which cannot be regained. The independent labels on the other hand are flexible and quickly adjust with the market trends thus saving themselves a huge amount of loss and they can even take unique steps to make better marketing. This is because they are small and damage control is usually easier for them.
Thus we can say, conclusively, that while commercial records treasure sales, independent records treasure their artists and go a long way in upholding their interests. This is one reason why many experts believe that commercial record labels will soon go extinct because they have lost sight and purpose on what music and music production is all about. Independent record labels are standing true to this belief and everyone is the better for it.
