Institutions: Record Label

What is a Record Label?

Record Labels are brands/companies/trademarks linked with the production and marketing of music videos and recordings. Such labels are also responsible for managing brands and trademarks. They also coordinate the production, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, promotion and enforcement of copyright for the artist’s sound recordings and music videos. Record labels earn their revenue through contractual agreements with their music artists that permits them to a certain percentage of the profit made from the artist’s work (e.g. Albums, music videos, singles).

There are both independent (Rough Trade, Domino) and conglomerate record labels (Hollywood Records, Sony Records) that operate within the industry. Artists signed to conglomerate record companies means that they have more of an opportunity to market their releases across a variety of platforms and audiences. This is beneficial to artists as it allows them to promote their music to a wider audience and build a diverse consumer base. This is more difficult for independent labels due to their smaller budget and sphere of influence.

Music videos are also a big help in the promotion and advertisement of music. The quality of said video furthers the promotional value as good production, plot and visuals represent the song in an engaging and interactive way to the audience. Conglomerates again often have the upper hand here as they have the funds to acquire quality equipment, sets and costumes etc.

Rough Trade

Rough Trade is a British record company that grew out of a record shop in Ladbroke Grove and were established in 1978. This label is home to early post-punk and indie pop band such as The Smiths, The Stroke and Desperate Bicycles. Their artists may cover a fairly small range in terms of genre but this specified style of music allows them to become an expert in this field and get to know their target audience therefore allowing them to produce successfully selling material.

Rough Trade is an independent label that means that they have a lower budget to spend on the production of music videos etc. This means that music videos produced by them are often characterised by a lack of props, special effects, lower budget locations and less extravagant filming techniques. They often create performance or hybrid narrative/performance videos.

Hollywood Records

Hollywood Records, Inc. is an American record label of the Disney Music Group. The label focuses on releasing music of the pop, hip hop, rock and country genres and is home to artists like Demi Lovato, Breaking Benjamin and Queen. Their focus on this wide range of genres allows them to reach a wide audience of people via the label and therefore gain a large revenue in profit.

Hollywood Records is a conglomerate of Disney so therefore has a large budget that it can fall back on to produce music videos and other such promotional material. This allows them to take more creative risks in their work as even if they make a loss they still have a large amount of money to protect the label from financial problems. This access to a large budget also means that they have more to spend on creating a star image for their artist (mostly done through performance based videos) and high quality products. As Disney is such a huge conglomerate this means revenue can be spent on the production, distribution and marketing of their music videos therefore giving them a higher chance of financial success.

My Record Label

After looking into both conglomerate and independent record labels I have decided that as I am most interested in the indie music genre and have chosen to do a song form this genre for my music video that my label will be independent. The conventions of the types of music videos they create (narrative/performance) also corresponds with the vision I had in mind.