Many naive acts who manage to get a recording contract with a label believe that just because you get signed to a record label automatically means that you’ll be treated well by your label. Not so. Once a record has been scheduled for release, a number of factors will determine if it becomes a priority at the label. The term “priority” is used to designate which releases will get the most promotion and marketing attention—out of the hundreds of records a label may put out each year.
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from the 4th edition of Music Is Your Business by Christopher Knab and Bartley F. Day, helping musicians with the business of music.
The reasons why one artist’s new release may be more important than another to a label are varied and often hard to understand. The major labels—and many independent record labels—juggle a lot of apples and oranges when they go about the business of trying to sell records. There are a number of circumstances that contribute to the (sometimes irrational) decisions about which records will or will not be made a priority. Some of these reasons reflect cold, hard, business realities. Others are emotional and complex. The biggest factor is this: music, after it’s been recorded, becomes a product.
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At this point, art enters the world of commerce. When a product containing an artistic creation becomes something people can buy, art meets commerce and the two worlds collide. In today’s music business environment the party that pays for the production and manufacture of the artistic product usually wins any arguments about how the art contained within the product will be marketed.
Music is an emotional product and because of that there will always be issues that come up during the recording of the songs, the marketing of the record, or in the personal relationships that are developed. These can deeply affect the success or failure of the project.
Music isn’t the same kind of product as a shoe. You don’t sell a shoe the same way you sell a CD. If you want to sell a shoe, the shoe itself won’t object too much about how you sell it. Not so with music. The artists and bands that make music have an emotional investment in their creation. As artists, they concentrate more on the creative side of music. Rarely are they well-versed in the intricacies of the business world. So, as creative creatures they can easily develop strong opinions on how their art should be marketed.
Songwriters usually write a song as a creative expression; musicians and singers interpret and record the song. But a record label pays the bills for making the recording and then has to sell the recording. (Remember, devising a plan to sell the recording is called marketing.) Business people usually know more about commerce than art, so the tensions that exist because of this dynamic can lead to misunderstandings, and disappointments for everyone involved.
Many musicians get themselves into trouble with record label executives because they think the only thing that’s important is the music itself, while the record label executives and their teams of Promo Reps have very little emotional investment in the songs they promote. From the label’s point of view, it’s the responsibility of the record label to find a way to sell the recording they invested in. The label may try to preserve the emotional investment their acts have in their songs as best they can, but they will stop at nothing when, for example, a promotional opportunity comes up that may be at odds with the image or ethics that the artist holds. If the label executives see a potential profit coming from some controversial promotion campaign, they will usually do what they can to take advantage of that marketing opportunity. At the same time, if the artist is creating such a nuisance to them that they sense a threat to their investment or even their egos, they may decide to cancel a promotion campaign at a moment’s notice. Take my word for it, if you’re perceived as a troublemaker by the label executives, or if they decide that your record shows no signs of being accepted at radio or by music retailers, then your recording contract may be about as valuable as a sheet of Kleenex.
It would take another book to fully explain the strange dynamic between the fragile emotions of aspiring musicians and the egos of materialistic record company executives, but let’s take a look at some fairly common situations that come up in the complex world of record labels, marketplace realities, and artist relations.
Factors That Determine Priority Releases
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Major labels often find that they’ve over-extended themselves by signing too many acts within a short period of time, and scheduling too many releases to come out at the same time. So, when they discuss which scheduled records have the best chance of success in the marketplace, they may simply push a release back six months to a year. (Unfortunately for the act, depending on an act’s actual contract, there may be no guarantees that a label has to ever release their record.)
Another situation is this. If a label signs an act because they play a genre of music that is currently hot on the charts, but the negotiations for signing the deal or the recording process took too much time, they may have missed their opportunity to cash in on a current popular music trend. Realizing that, they may decide not to make the record a priority release but to sit on it and wait to see if another time of year would be more opportune for releasing the record.
To complicate matters even more, a label executive may sign an act only to stop a competing record label executive from signing them. When the record is released, any interest in promoting it takes second place to the executive’s personal satisfaction of having one-upped a competitor—and the act is left out in the cold.
But the ego issue can also work positively for a recording artist. An artist may have a manager who also manages another act that is currently hot. The label executive may sign the lesser known artist with hopes of getting the manager to sign the other band to their label some day. So, when the record of the lesser-known artist comes out, the label executive may pull out all the stops promotionally, to show the manager what a great job the label can do. If the label shows it can do a good job with a newer artist on that manager’s roster, perhaps the manager will send one of his established stars over to the label when the existing recording contract with the established artist runs out.
Here’s another reason why a record might become a priority at a label. We’re constantly hearing about downsizing—companies reducing their staff with every new merger or corporate buyout. Many major labels are merging with other large labels and increasing the workload for the remaining staff. A decade ago there were six major labels, and today we’re down to just three.
It can be important for a label executive to demonstrate to the shareholders of the corporation and the staff at the label that the downsizing issue isn’t a concern. A particular act’s new release is given a stronger push to impress all concerned parties.
Will your music be released?
There’s a flip side, however. When downsizing occurs, an artist’s record may be shifted to a different priority level. Key personnel who were excited about and instrumental in “breaking” a new label act may be fired or asked to take early retirement. When it comes time to release the new record, a different person may be assigned to work the act; someone who may not care much about or even like the music of the artist. Will that record remain a priority? There are no guarantees that the new employee will be excited about the act’s music. They may have their own pet projects to put ahead of any previous arrangements.
“Bidding wars” also affect priority status. Bidding wars occur when a new band is the hot topic of the industry grapevine. One label makes an offer to sign the band, another label hears about it and ups the bid, a third label offers even more money. The winner of this bidding war will probably be forced to make that act’s initial release a priority. The label will need a sizeable return in sales dollars from the new band’s recording to recoup their large investment. Interestingly, no band or act signed from any bidding war has ever gone on to major stardom.
Music trends come and go. In the early and mid ’90s grunge came and went. What followed in the late ’90s were young boy vocal-groups, and blond ingénue solo-artists. Today R&B, hip-hop, and dance acts have become more mainstream than ever. When a hot new music style comes on the scene, any act that’s signed to take advantage of the new trend will usually become a priority at the record label that signed them. By the way, new releases by superstar acts are usually automatically priority records because of their star status and the simple fact that they sell a lot of product consistently.
So, take heed. Many people think a recording contract with a record label means automatic stardom. That’s not the case. You’d do well to research a label’s track record and reputation for making their releases priorities before signing a recording contract with any label.
These issues have come up often enough to contribute to a change in the attitude many musicians have toward working with record labels. Over the last three decades more and more musicians have taken charge of their own business careers. The list of artists and bands releasing their own records and marketing them themselves grows longer every day.
Via Dotted Music
