TuneCore Adds Amazon CD Store
Flat fee digital distributor TuneCore has opened a store at Amazon.com via Amazon's CreateSpace on demand pressing service. That means TuneCore now offers indie acts the ability to have low cost worldwide online distribution of both digital product and physical product without the cost of manufacturing.
One of the "Artists to Watch" featured on the first Amazon page is by Iraqi musicians that are refugees. TuneCore wrote us that "if Iraqi refugees are able to put out music on Amazon both digitally and physically, it's further evidence that TuneCore has fundamentally changed the marketplace." Amazon deserves a big share of the credit too, but the point is that by smartly combining existing services any artist can now put together a very low cost release and marketing campaign.
Is there anything that Major Labels can offer that indie artists do not currently have access to already?
I guess $cash$ for marketing but, you have to ask, with all the strings attached and the meddling, who is that working for? Who has found that to be sustainable?
Relationships with media outlets..?
Manufacturing?….well no.
Serious questions….please anyone name something.
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wheatus.com
Major labels take care of the marketing and touring if you are big enough. However, artists have to work when the label says to work and basically the label owns the artist.
Services like http://routenote.com and Tunecore are offering great services which are really helping Indie artists get their music to the masses fast, but they key is still marketing to get the music sold!
Media buys is the only thing I can think of. All the pre-existing relationships and networks are hard to replace or rebuild from scratch.
Then again, that’s just a matter of knowing somebody inside the machine…not necessarily “signing to a major label.”
Mass demand. Labels create demand for music. It’s one thing to have the ability to fullfill orders it’s quite difficult for indies to create demand that translates into sales.
Many artists still chase major label deals thinking that the label pays for everything. At the end of the day, reality is the artist pays for everything out of their advance.
Whilst record company deals may still have their place for some artists, the reality is that 99% of artists in the future will be on their own (and in fact are choosing this option).
The Mass demand is only generated because the record label wants to recoup their investment which is fair, but dont be under any illusion that fame and fortune is any easier through a major label. If you dont cut it after the advance is repaid, you’ll be dropped and still be on your own, and possibly without access to your previous catalogue rights to boot…
I had a conversation with an major label artist recently who wanted to spread his video across the web, only to find that his contract with his Major Record company restricted him from doing so because the Record Co. in question had asked YouTube to restrict embedding on other sites (making sure the record co. got their YouTube fee for every play, embedding on another site would kill their income stream).
Is that good for the artist, of course not, because the video should be viral, thats the USP of Youtube – now they’re stuck and cant even promote their own video. Crazy.
On the very rare occasions that bands are offered any type of contract from a record company, they should think carefully about their long term plan and potential restrictive pitfalls, and whether they will really be better off in the long term.