A Guide to the Music Industry

A Record Label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music videos and music recordings. It is also the company that manages the manufacture, production and distribution, marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protection of a music video or music recording.
Another feature of record labels is that they conduct talent scouting and the development of new artists whilst undertaking contracts with recording artists and their managers.

Record labels are often under the control of a larger organisations called a music group which is typically owned by an international company that also tends to have non-music divisons. A music group consists of music publishing companies, record manufacturers, record distributors and record labels.

Major Institutions

Sony Music Enterainment, Emi Group, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group are the four major music industries today, as of 2005 these 4 groups aka the 'big four' controlled around 70% of the world music market. 

Each of these institutions own smaller record labels that work with specific genres of music and artists in different regions to distribute their products around the world sufficiently.

Minor Institutions

Record companies and music publishers that are not controlled by one of the big four are generally considered to be independent or 'indie' labels even though they may be part of a large corporation with a smilar structure to the other companies, however some consider an indie label to only release non-mainstream music. Some independent record labels sign dual-release agreements with major record labels and many agree to international licensing deals, distribution agreements, and other arrangements due to money and distribution problems. The big four also own small indie or non-mainstream music labels to help minor institutions distribute and produce their own music.

Universal Music UK and Island Records

As a group we have picked the company Universal Music Group, subdivision Universal Music uk, Island Records to sign our artist as it is part of the 'big four' whilst Island Records works closely with producing and distributing rock and pop artists, targeting an audience suitable for our own artist with all the knowledge and experience needed behind them.
Island Records was orignal founded by Chris Blackwell in 1959 and was based in Jamaica. The record label then moved to the UK in 1962 and was known as the biggest indie record label in history having a major influence on the 1970s early UK music scene up until 1989 when Blackwell sold his label to PolyGram making Island Records no longer an independent label. In 1998 PolyGram, along with associated labels were brought by Seagrams who are controlled by Universal Music Group. Since the Universal take over there has been a separation between brands and genres helping the label to appeal to a variety of audiences. Due to this Island Records itself has branched out having devisions in the UK, Island and Germany with Island Mercury Group and the U.S with The Island Def Jam Music Group.

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• The media and entertainment company NBC Universal is linked to the Universal Music Group owning a channel that only plays music by Universal artists, Universal Studios also only use songs by Universal signed artist on their soundtracks and films. This means that Universal artist are more likely to get noticed and have the exposer needed allowing all artists, including our own to gain recognition.

  
• The Universal Music Group also co-develop the site Vevo which shows over 45,000 free music videos of all genres with adverts of other 'big four' music videos and music records. Vevo has now moved to YouTube, one of the most popular sites on the internet giving artist even more exposer.
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• The Universal Music Group YouTube channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/universalmusicgroup?blend=1&ob=5

Island Records has many different major artists of all different genres signed to their record label such as Rihanna, Mumford and Sons and Devlin. Many of the Indie Pop artists signed to this label are solo females including Florence and The Machine, VV Brown and Remi Nicole. Knowing this will have an impact on our chose of artist as a group working in this genre as it shows us that female solo artists are very successful with this label and are pushed creatively and targeted to the right audience.

A clear theme throughout the label is the link between gender and genre. Hiphop and rap along with indie rock are mainly strong male artists whilst the indie pop label is dominated by solo artists, especially female artists. This could help our group pick an artist as we know a female solo artist will have success however there is also the risk of our artist blending in with all the others and not having great success and standing out from all the artists before. We would have to take all these factors into consideration before picking an artist most suitable for the indie pop genre.

By choosing to singe to Universal Music Group and Island Records as a group we know that our artist will be in a label tailored specify for the indie pop genre along with being in one of the 'big four' meas they will have greater chance of success in the music industry with their music being heard and seen on the sites and channels linked to Universal Music. The previous success of Island Records means that they will most likely distribute and produce our artist to the highest quality, also Island Record produces and distributes their music meaning no lose of profit. We think that this record label is a perfect fit for our genre and are very happy with this chose.