

Video embedding finalé: OK Go leaves EMI - tel
http://www.okgo.net/2010/03/10/onwards-and-upwards/

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InclinedPlane
This is interesting on several levels. One of the big justifications for the
major music publishers to take such large chunks out of record sale revenue
(typically more than the artists make) is that they provide promotion and
publicity for the artists. However, in this case the record label is hampering
promotion, in service to a relatively tiny degree of financial gain for
themselves.

As well there is still this idea that signing with a big record label gets you
something, some momentum that propels your band to heights it wouldn't have
been able to reach without the label. Increasingly it's becoming obvious that
this just isn't so. In the modern age of cheap, ubiquitous communication, and
of dime-a-dozen high quality recording studios, the value of the big record
labels is becoming an increasingly dubious proposition. More and more people
are realizing that signing with big record labels is a sure fire way to lose
out on a lot of money while yoking your band to a bizarre set of restrictions
that will more than likely hurt rather than help its popularity.

As more already successful bands go it alone more and more bands that are just
starting out will have the courage to do the same. I suspect we're on the cusp
of a "startup culture" in music that will blossom over the next several years.

