Indie VS Major

Wow I've been having this conversation with lots of people lately...

A few months back, I had one of the biggest epiphanies of my life. It wasn't a new thought, but it was really cemented into my head. From every direction, all I'm seeing is evidence of how much control you're in of your music if you remain independent and choose not to sign with a major label.

I urge you to Google "Sample Recording Contract" and read some examples of what some of your favourite bands have signed. It puts a different spin on things when you think about the fact that even their song titles are agreed upon by the company. Bands have to argue for lyrics and make a case for why they arranged a song a certain way. Everything is under the microscope of commercial potential. Artistic merit takes a HUGE back seat.

And the music business has some really fucked up "standard" rules. Put it this way...

Let's say I "sign" you. All I am is an investor. I give you an advance so you don't have to work anymore while you record an album. But remember it's an advance. It's just a loan. The when the album is done, I tell you which songs I like, and which ones I don't. I own them all now by the way. Yes you WROTE them. By I OWN them. And I own them with money I am LOANING you. SO now we're getting your songs into stores and you start selling CDs. All the net proceeds go to ME until I recoup your advance and the costs I payed to promote you. So now you've sold enough records to pay me back, now I give you 10% of any remaining sales. So let's re-iterate. I gave you a loan. I own the songs. You pay back the loan. I still own the songs and now I make more money than you on all future sales.

Now if you were to release a CD independently, you find an investor. They loan you the money. You write some songs and you OWN them. When you sell the CDs, you're still going to have to share with the same people the major label shares a piece with... distributors and retailers... the difference here is you don't split the largest portion with your investor. You can pay them you agreed upon amount and the rest is yours. So instead of getting 10%, you could get 50-70% of the gross. So realistically, you need to sell one fifth the amount of CDs to make the same amount of money you'd be making on a major label, only you'd own your songs as well.

With a major label comes major contacts and major opportunities. But you have to have every single one of your songs get "OK'd" by somebody.

With an indie release, you are the boss. That's a good and bad thing. If you don't know anybody in the industry, that's a bad thing. How can you dream to even sell one fifth of what you'd sell if you were signed? But if you did sell that many, you could rest knowing it's YOUR art and no one else's.

Of course there are exceptions. But as a general guideline, this is the situation.

I read somewhere online that the average MAJOR LABEL band sells less than 1000 CDs. Maybe you can find the link for me... Only the top 5% of the major label bands sell enough CDs to get noticed, and even then, a lot of them don't get rich but make their label A LOT of money. There are tons of examples out there but TLC comes to mind... #1 selling female artists and at the end of the year, they had only made about 50 grand while the label made MILLIONS. All their videos, limos, expensive label parties were recoupable - meaning they were paying for it all. When it was all said and done, they each filed for bankruptcy.

Food for thought anyway.

So the big epiphany I had was that I knew I could sell at least 1000 CDs independently, and that would put me in a better financial position than about half the major label bands out there. It still wouldn't make me even close to rich, but it's fun to know my little band can outsell someone with "huge marketing clout" and "a committee" helping them make decisions. Honestly, I can see why any band would want to sign a deal with a major. But most of them don't know how bad the deals are until it's too late.

I'm not saying I'll never sign a deal. What I am saying is I'm not wide-eyed and naive about what to expect and when I'm in a position to negotiate a better deal for myself will be the time I consider signing anything. At this point, with a limited sales history, we have no bargaining chip and would have to accept whatever offer was presented. But hopefully in the not too distant future I'll be able to forge a partnership with a label that has the ability to get my music everywhere but doesn't expect to own my soul in return. I heard U2 owns their songs. When I heard that, my respect for them went up 1000 percent.

One of my sources of info - I read this years ago...

THE PROBLEM WITH MUSIC

A few more interesting reads...

SAMPLE RECORDING CONTRACT (note who owns what...)

The Truth About Record Labels

INDIE PROMO REALITIES (in the UK)

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