As some you of may know, Record Union are strong supporters of The Peoples Music Awards - the first and only global unsigned music award. The awards is a great platform for indie artists who want to expand their fan base and get attention from an influential panel of judges, and has the potential to give apsiring artists and bands a real push on the rocky path to fame and notoreity.

On the 17th of April the ceremony of this years awards cycle will be held in London. It´s gearing up to be a killer night with 14 finalists from a range of genres committed to impressing the judges and audience alike with their live performances. If you are around London at that time we strongly urge you to attend - if so, we look forward to catching up with you at the after party! You can find out more about the ceremony and who´s playing here.

Since we wrote about The Peoples Music Awards a few months ago here on the blog we have been excited to see artists on Record Union signing up to next years award cycle. With so much talent on Record Union, we look forward to seeing some strong competition. Though entry for this years awards is closed, you can still register next years awards, its free! Head over to their website for more information.

Getting signed to a serious record label is the aim of many musicians, and for good reason. Labels can offer unparalleled support, resources and experience in producing and releasing music. Many also have established media contacts and have a deal of promotional clout which can help you increase your listener base and music sales. They will also take care of many of the time consuming day to day management of you or your band, and let you get on with what you do best - creating music.

Now, Record Labels don´t do all of this just for the fun of it. Rather, they do it as an investment. Record Labels are a business, and just like all businesses they make risk calculations. To make yourself attractive to Record Labels they must see you are an attractive investment; that once they invest money in you they will at least get it back.

It is undeniable that the onset of the digital music revolution has created amazing new possibilities for independents, both when it comes to distribution and promotion. However, it is also an environment which has made it harder for many Record Labels to sell music. The traditional marketing machinery has lost traction, and the diffuse Internet music environment has made the access and consumption of music far more diversified. Even with money to throw around, the chance and scale of success has become smaller. Once the traditional music industry adapts, or we see the rise of more influential and innovative digilabels, they will have a hard time making the same kind of money as they once did.

In this climate of uncertainty, risk calculations become all the more prevalent. So, to get signed you must make yourself as attractive as possible. Raw talent won´t hack it anymore, not by itself. They don’t have the time, resources or money to nurture you from infancy. If you are looking to get signed, the Internet is a great place to develop your art and show the labels you got what they want.

A decent track record of digital sales is a strong plus factor, and nothing illustrates an active and engaged fan base like having thousands of plays on streaming services. Focusing on improving the scale and force of your live performances, selling merchandise and playing festivals are also plus factors when looking to gain label interest. The bottom line is that a Record Label is a business. A good business makes money. In an uncertain environment risk becomes more prevalent. So if you want a Record Deal, a wise thing would be touse the great possibilities in the online environment to make yourself into an irresistible investment.

The BBC technology page wrote an interesting article recently entitled “the net helps music sing new songs”. It is a great article outlining the many ways which the internet is changing music, and how musicians are utilizing the internet to empower themselves.  Discussing the continuing role of major labels, the article points out that “Some would argue that with an international reach and incredibly low entry costs, that the internet itself is the newest “major” label”. This arguement is in fact quite strong, for the many of the key roles that a major record label performs (recording, distribution and marketing) the internet also performs, and with a greater volume of music. Technological developments within music recording and production, coupled with the international reach of the internet has made it easier for musicians to record and “release” their music globally. The internet can be seen as the new “major label” for it enables far more music than ever before to be shared on a global platform,  while simultaneously putting this music in a close proximity to listeners who can discover and enjoy it.

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The Record Industry is losing money, this is no secret. EMI recently announced losses of a whopping $1.2 billion dollars, with revenue falling from $2.8 billion to $2.3 billion. But the truth is that record labels everywhere are generally experiencing reduced revenue streams. This is reducing the volume of records which are being put out, and means that more pressure to succeed is being put on the few records are that are being released. As Glen Peoples of Coolfer points out in this article, this is a climate which discourages risk taking. Record Labels are no longer willing to take risks on relative newcomers but would rather focus on bands which already have an established fan base and a few releases behind them. This same kind of risk analysis forces labels to focus on signing mainstream artists (which have a greater chance to make them money) than focusing artists outside the mainstream which are seen as a more risky investment.

This logic is understandable since their old revenue structure is being increasingly challenged by the changing music environment, but it doesn’t detract from the criticism that questions of risk and profitability are distracting them from brining us fresh records. This view was voiced by Epic Records U.K. managing director Nick Raphael who said at a recent musexpo meeting, “It’s about finding great music and great artists, and not getting distracted in the process”. But it seems they are getting distracted, distracted because they feel increasingly pressured by questions of risk and profitability. This fails the bands who are trying to forge new paths outside of the mainstream and at the same time the listeners who expect labels to innovate and keep the music industry vibrant and alive. If this trend continues, it seems like the onus is on the new music generation to fulfil their role and find the talent they will inevitably miss, and to provide the resources for bands who are considered “high risk” to have an equal chance at developing their music. With distribution and promotion channels becoming more accessible to the majority, and recording costs far cheaper, questions of risk and profitability will hopefully become less central and the conditions within the industry more democratic and inclusive.

The music world has changed and continues to do so without anyone really able to accurately predict how the future of music will look like. The good thing is that music is still being enjoyed and celebrated by people all over the world. It wakes people up in the mornings and gets people through their day, it allows people to relax, disconnect and reflect and transcend their environments in spouts of elation; it provides a life narrative and strengthens the self identity of many individuals while moving and uniting people in a common bond of shared experience.

This much has not changed. What has changed is that a large chunk of music which wasn’t available to the masses has now become available. Why be satisfied with mainstream hits when the horizons to discover new music are so broad? The problem for the music industry of 10 years ago is that many have been slow to adapt to these changes. They focus, and still do, on selling a huge volume of a select few artists, whereas those who listen to music these days are able to diversify their taste to such a degree that these select few artists are becoming less attractive (the thing to read here is The Long Tail by Chris Anderson). There is so much more music out there for people to listen to and buy.

It seems that the goals of the services of the new music generation are clear. First, we have to make as much of this glorious but neglected market of unheard “niche” music available to as many people as possible: we need to give it a fair listenership. Second, and perhaps the most challenging, is to make it easy to navigate this new diverse realm; to discover new and clever ways of filtering this world of music based on individual listener preferences. Thirdly, we need to provide a good way to support the artists in this new environment, to give them a way to make money so that they can continue to move us with their music. These are challenges which we at Record Union are determined to face, head on.