Labels

Making Independent Music

Dominik Bartmanski, Ian Woodward

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000181920
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Antropologia

The music industry is dominated today by three companies. Outside of it, thousands of small independent record labels have developed despite the fact that digitalization made record sales barely profitable. How can those outsiders not only survive, but thrive within mass music markets? What makes them meaningful, and to whom? Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward show how labels act as taste-makers and scene-markers that not only curate music, but project cultural values which challenge the mainstream capitalist music industry. Focusing mostly on labels that entered independent electronic music after 2000, the authors reconstruct their aesthetics and ethics. The book draws on multiple interviews with labels such as Ostgut Ton in Berlin, Argot in Chicago, 100% Silk in Los Angeles, Ninja Tune in London, and Goma Gringa in Sao Paulo. Written by the authors of Vinyl, this book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the contemporary recording industry, independent music, material culture, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies.

1
Being independent

Both independentand mainstreamare imagined categories, socially contextualized and relational. They are terms describing clusters of real experiences rather than singular entities. Such categorizations are relatively fluid – what is considered mainstream is not forever fixed, just as the notion of what qualifies as independent changes over time. Nevertheless, even though their boundaries have been blurred, the idea of a binary opposition between mainstream and independent remains a useful orienting device. The mainstream–independent opposition remains useful because certain practical binaries – such as standard vs non-standard, experimental vs profit-Oriented, art-for-art's-sake vs commercial art, or bohemian vs bourgeois – can be drawn upon dynamically by actors and mapped onto this classical master binary This pattern was thematized by Pierre Bourdieu (1993: 64) in his seminal work The Field of Cultural Production,where he observed that the perception and appreciation of such binary 'schemes' are resources that mediate meaningful engagements within a given field of cultural production. Each field is a space of objective possibilities but it is also an imagined and emergent set of social relations. Making independent music is no different. Like other fields of cultural production, it is necessary for the actors engaged in it to respond adequately to field-specific problems that are nevertheless framed by the same constitutive binaries found in other fields. As Bourdieu (ibid.) observed regarding the imagined spaces of cultural production, 'writers and artists ... do not react to an "objective reality" but to a "problem-raising situation"'.

Let's think inductively about the basic meaning of independence by examining some cases in order to understand its boundaries and to provide a background against which we might begin to appreciate the idea of the independent in contemporary electronic music. To do this, we look for some of the most notable independent artists or albums, and some of the iconic and popular representations of the independent musical form. We start with the case of a recent global bestselling independent artist, namely Adele. Yes, that's right – Adele. It might seem incongruous that we are writing about the artist Adele in the context of musical independence. Adele's albums '21' and '25' each topped the US music charts for two years running, '21' in 2011 and 2012, and '25' in 2015 and 2016. In Great Britain, where Adele's mainstream popularity was cemented and where her albums also peaked at the highest position, her musical releases appeared on the label XL Recordings. XL is an independent London-based record label, once famous for launching The Prodigy to the international stage, and now one company within the largest conglomerate of independent record labels called the Beggars Group. Moreover, XL Recordings sometimes relies on making distribution deals with major companies such as Columbia and Sony in certain market territories, such as the US. This was the case with Adele's releases. The Beggars Group is in itself an interesting case as well, because it partially or wholly owns and distributes the products of some of the most historically important independent labels in the UK, such as 4AD, Beggars Banquet, Rough Trade, XL Recordings, and Mo Wax. Adele is a remarkably popular, talented and unique performer whose records have struck a major chord with millions of listeners globally, but are her albums 'independent' because they were released on XL Recordings? Is it in the spirit of the term to include her in such a nomenclature? In part, the fact that Adele's globally bestselling albums were released by a company independent by dint of its 'independence' from the global majors tells us something important about the changing meaning of 'independent' in the music industry.

Let's step back a little first to consider some important historical context for the growth of independents before we further consider the status of Adele as 'independent'. The fact that this large corporate group, the Beggars Group – though one still technically 'independent' – now manages such an array of important post-punk and indie labels is itself notable and reflects the consolidation of smaller labels into larger ones as a results of phases of market crisis and consolidation (see Taylor 2016; Webb 2007). In the 1980s, for example, many larger and successful independent labels like Island, Motown and Virgin were sold to or bought up by major companies. This period was one where what we now understand as emblematic independent labels of the era were taken over by larger corporate entities. At the same time, the notion of independent was irrevocably changed in this period, being atrophied to become 'indie'. While indie became a hugely popular staple, the term also became culturally polluted in the consciousness of critical audiences who considered it a sell-out. Richard King (2012:487) observes this process of the retreat of the UK independent labels in his book How Soon is Now?.Drawing attention to Warp Records, his statement quintessentially sums up the way the spirit of independent music making moved into different scenes and began to have different incarnations:

By the midpoint of the 1990s the momentum of the independent sector had stalled almost to a halt: ... the most creatively successful independent label of the era had nothing in common with the perky ordinariness of Britpop. Warp Records, or Warp, as it instantly became known, had started casually in the back room of a Sheffield record shop.

This shift in independent production was associated with a large-scale consolidation of economic power within the music industry. In their review, Peterson and Anand (2004) observe that at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s an important change marked the music industry. On the one hand, smaller independent firms were better placed to capitalize on cultural changes in the 1960s. As they note, 'in the rock era, innovative, small, loosely structured organizations gained market share by being attuned, to changing tastes of a particular slice of the public' (Peterson and Anand 2004: 313). On the other hand, changes in law, regulation and technology enabled these independent smaller labels to remain on the market and successfully compete with big corporations. By the end of the rock era, however, many of the successful independent labels had been bought by the majors, who consolidated on their successes in popularizing niche markets and styles. Hracs (2012) describes this process of consolidation, commenting that in 1999 the music industry was controlled by five large majors, concentrated in a selection of global cities: Tokyo, London, Berlin and in the US, Los Angeles, New York and to a lesser extent, Nashville. Agglomeration processes were based on achieving economies of scale and vertical integration of many aspects of the business, from recording, production and pressing, and distribution, turning them 'in-house' (Hracs 2012: 444). Hracs also notes that during this growth phase there were few external market disruptions, only technological interventions and innovations that represented opportunities for growth and expansion, and profit, rather than market disruption and re-organization. File sharing and MP3s eroded the power of both independents and majors and consolidated power in fewer companies, including companies offering digital and streaming services. A consequence was also the 'wiping out' of many traditional music retailers – one estimate is that between 2000 and 2003, around 1,200 music retailers closed down as the music world largely turned to digitality and streaming (Hracs 2012).

Many researchers and theorists have commented on the commodification of music production through the twentieth century. This is part of a broader cultural and political critique of alienation, exploitation of labour and the systemic erosion of authenticity within the relation between makers and listeners. Yet, with the rise of flexible means for making, producing, releasing and also consuming music associated with digitality and the internet, there has supposedly been – at least ostensibly – a democratization of music production, dissemination and consumption. This process also manifests in the rise of the so-called mythical 'bedroom music-makers', new digital tools for making music, and small-venue, ad hoc spaces for gigs. An emblematic outcome of this trend toward the 'DIY' in the music industry has been a proliferation of small and micro music labels that allow more actors to become creators.

In an important sense, this changing historical context of the music industry was one important space for opening up the growth of a different generation of independent labels. At the same time, it was also an opportunity, especially for electronic musicians, as the availability of technologies for making, recording and distributing music become cheaper, more mobile, and 'domesticated'. Granted, since the 1970s there have been some stellar examples of independent labels going on to bigger things or achieving the (perhaps dreaded) status of becoming 'emblematic' of the indie movement – Rough Trade, Factory, Mute, Creation, 4AD, to mention some famous UK examples. But in the last few decades there seem to be more and more smaller and independent labels springing up. This can be broadly contextualized within social changes of work in the digital era, as well as of the entrepreneurialization of the music industry more broadly. The concentration of a relatively mobile, culturally voracious and lifestyle-conscious youth population in metropolitan areas is also relevant to the independent scenes we explore.

In the British context, Alex Ogg (2009) documents the complex ties and personalities that forged the UK independent scene from the punk and post-punk era through until the mid-1980s. But prefacing his remarkable descriptions of the ties, ideas and networks that drove those labels, Ogg points to an era of growth and relative openness to independent music after the Second World War. Enabled by technological factors like the growth of home listening technologies, radio, and the popularity of television shows like American Bandstand,which showcased and produced mass musical celebrities, this was an era associated with development of new genres such as rock and roll and soul and was, in Ogg's assessment, largely understandable as a relative 'golden age' for independents (Ogg 2009: 13). Additionally, this era was relatively much less tied around a small number of large companies who had achieved substantial vertical and horizontal integration. Alongside being an intense period of musical innovation, this relatively free space of production meant that small labels were able to flexibly respond to market, audience and artistic developments. In their history of small labels in the postwar era, Kennedy and McNutt say that 'the 1950s decade was the golden era for small independents, which embraced blues, gospel, modern jazz, country, R&B, and rock'n'roll' (Kennedy and McNutt 1999: xvii).

Quoting the label chief and journalist Greg Shaw, who was a major player in the development of garage and lo-fi rock via his label Bomp! Records, which the New York Timesdescribed as 'a major force in the spread of underground music and fanzine publishing since the mid-1960s' (Sisario 2004), Ogg states that 'between 1956 and a decade later, some 150,000 independent records were released, on not less than 500 imprints' (Ogg 2009: 13). Ogg (2009: 13) also points to the growing reach and mobility of booming locally and regionally popular musical genres like R&B and soul, alongside emerging mass technologies that afforded their mobility:

Sunprospered with Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins et al, Specialtywith Little Richard, Chesswith Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, Vee-Jaywith John Lee Hooker and Jimmy Reed and Imperialwith Fats Domino. Dozens of new labels sprang up.

Roy Shuker (2005) estimates that around 1,000 new labels were launched in the years between 1948 and 1954. The success of independents in this era can be ascribed in part to their different organizational structures and practices for releasing records (Ogg 2009). Major labels opted for a Fordist approach, serving records in industrial quantities to huge territories. Such an approach relied on them being able to have an equally industrial A&R policy: those artists deemed to have best-selling appeal and national reach had priority. The point was, however, that the independent and small labels were in touch with energetic and innovative musical movements and scenes on the ground. Quite literally, they had their 'ears to the ground' as participants in independent scenes.

This was the case with the aforementioned Bomp! Records' Greg Shaw, but it is also a feature more generally of the independent approach. In a short obituary honouring his career published in the New York Times,Ben Sisario (2004) notes that Shaw 'founded and operated a series of magazines and record labels that had limited sales but much influence'. Sisario observes that Shaw preferred to describe himself as 'a developer of scenes' rather than a music businessman, noting that Shaw once said of his approach to promoting and releasing independent music: 'I don't really look for isolated bands, I look for a movement that I think is going in the right direction and then I put my energy behind it' (Sisario 2004). This last statement also points to the possible economic and artistic exchanges whereby independent labels acted as 'talent developers' for the majors, or as scene and sounds innovators, with major labels sometimes buying out artists or even whole label catalogues.

Now we can revisit and conclude our earlier discussion about Adele's status as an independent musician. The head of her record company, XL Recordings, Richard Russell, also talks about his unique approach to releasing music and moves away from describing XL as a business. In spite of operating with very large sums of money – Adele's signing from XL to Columbia for releases in the US market was reputedly worth around £90 million to XL Recordings – he asserts that it tries to operate with 'anti-business' principles. The performative discourse of artistic value, artistic credibility and communicative relevance wins out over money. In an interview published in the Guardianin 2011, the XL boss talks further about the way his label operates. Rather than look for celebrity, easy-money, and short routes to artistic fame and sales volume, he claims that XL Recordings pursues an approach which is 'truly artistic ... an obliteration of the rules and the norms' within the music industry. Embracing a philosophy of focusing on the value of music for arts' sake, Russell explains that XL looks to sign artists who are not interested in the job of music, but make music for the love of it, asserting that 'It's much more about the person and their ideas and strength of character and the direction they want to go in'. Richard Russell (quoted in Jonze 2011) went On:

We get offered 200,000 unsolicited demos a year and yet only sign about one artist a year. We're basically saying no to everything, lots of big artists as well. You need an element of fearlessness to do that. It's basically an anti-business philosophy.

This stated resistance to corporatization is consistent with the template for being independent, emphasizing artistic vision and integrity as one of its ultimate values.

Yet this doesn't fully explain the success of Adele, an 'independent' artist also at the very heart of mainstream appeal across multiple global markets. Some commentators ask of Adele: 'Would she have been as successful if she'd been signed to a major? Would she have been asked to lose weight and get some media training to be more polished when dealing with journalists? Would she have been put together with younger and "hipper" songwriter/producers? ... Probably' (Lindvall 2012, in the Guardian). But a significant part of the story is that Adele ended up relying on one of the global music giants to move her music internationally, especially into US markets. A common issue for independent labels and musicians who operate across size and scale is getting their music heard more widely; independents need to get it noticed online, on radio, and stocked in physical stores. As even larger independents like XL often struggle to move outside local and regional networks, they rely on distribution companies to promote and move their stock, and sometimes to fund production plans. In effect, they become 'hybrid' business entities, sitting somewhere between independent status and major label scale, embracing an independent philosophy of releasing music in line with their aesthetic and artistic goals, but sometimes relying on financial and infrastructural deals with powerful majors. This is an example of how the boundaries between independent and mainstream are blurred. However, what XL can do is vastly different to what a label like Stroboscopic Artefacts or A Strangely Isolated Place, or Room40 can or want to do. The latter are much more specialized in terms of genres, operate at vastly different scales and therefore have access to different opportunity structures. This difference is not merely one of scale and economics, but about taste, openness and purity of aesthetic vision. XL operates with a more open-ended stylistic roster that enables cross-over translation to mainstream audiences, while the smaller labels we studied would not consider this part of their vision, or might even consider it in conflict with the identity they want to project and sustain. For Adele, to operate effectively within the expansive and complicated US markets, her music had to be released on a major label such as Columbia Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music, with all the marketing and promotion vehicles this implies. For DJs and producers that we interviewed here such as Jennifa Mayanja or Dana Ruh, this business strategy is simply not part of what they do as musical artists who subscribe to a DIY ethic of making and performing music.

Independent as types of connectedness and resistance performed

'Independent' carries a significant freight, of meaning which is much more powerful than the appropriated, commodified and contentious term 'indie'. To be sure, although the two are not mutually exclusive categories, there should be no confusing ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Table
• Acknowledgements
• Cast of interviewed characters
• List of featured labels, their owners and artists
• About the authors
• Prologue: 'You can't put a price on freedom'
• Introduction: Understanding independent labels
• 1 Being independent
• 2 Material economy
• 3 Symbolic economy
• 4 Urban ecology
• Epilogue: Writing independent culture
• References
• Index