Independent Label

Rough Trade Records

Market place - faulse creation
- Rough Trade began as a small record shop (Aroudn that time sold 2nd hand records in London)
- "DIY" artists
- 20/02/1986 IRA bombing campaigne
- Wasn't mainstream, different to other organisations
- Punk Rock explosion of 1976, Rough Trade released the Clash's first album
- Began to sell Jamaican music, as it was a huge part of the ladbreak
- Groove community -> Now offering a range of music
- "Spiral Scratch" -> DIY release (unheard of)
- Printed the cost of making a record onto the cover of the records
- 1970s - Distribution was managed by majors until rough trade started offering mail order to other shops. Started national distribution via a hand-picked regional network (DIFFERENT PURPOSE not to make money)
- Distributed 2000 "TVOD"
- Tony Wilson from factory records would come to Rough Trade to distribute records from his artists.
- Rough Trade's own label created (began) not based on cash advance, shared the profits on a 50/50 basis, principals were left-wing and comunist (equal pay rights)
- "Stiff Little Fingers" - anti-established punk band (1979) was 1st int he UK from an independent label to sell more than 100,000 copies.
- Did the distribution for 2 Tone Records - signed the Specials (1979)
- 1979 - 800 Labels
- Rough Trade struggled to keep hold of artists once they had become commercially viable - even the "Stiff Little Fingers" signed to a major label in the end.
- 1981 a change in musical direction towards more commercial pop music, caused problems for Rough Trade's ideology. People accused bands of "seeking hits" can pop records still have a socialist/left wing ideology
- 1982 Financial crises led to the closure of the shop in order to save the label and the distribution network. The shop was bought by 3 staff members.

- Money worries upset the communal vibe of Rough Trade -> Introduced talk of sales targets and worries about job security.
- Needed commercial success to support rapid expansion
THE SMITHS
- April 1983, signed Johnny Marr and Morrisey as the Smiths on a conventional long-term 4 album deal. The Smiths introduced Indie as a genre (Alternative, Independent music for an alternative, independent label)
- The Smiths remained to have independent credibility
-> "The Charming Man" entered the chart at number 25
- Rough Trade mounted an expensive marketing campaign in London Records (But this caused discontent - starting to employee methods used by Major Labels)
- Success launched the label on a global scale and introduced merchandise and the need to keep commercial outlets happy e.g. Woolworth's, HMV etc...
- 1984 Moved to a warehouse in Kings Cross - now had offices in Europe and America.

- Introduced a band of directions and middle management -> end of equal pay (1987) previously, everyone had been paid £7,800. Management didn't care about the music.
- The Smiths became dissatisfied with the label and began to consider signing to a major (E.M.I) but couldn't because of the long-term deal. Channeled their frustrations into their music. Signed to E.M.I following their 4th album but split before recording a 5th.

- Income from sales of 'The smiths' albums continued to fund the expansion of Rough Trade. Embraced the dance/rave explosion.
- July 1990 moved to even bigger premises (one of several factors that led to financial ruin.)
- Everyone started to leave and management structure collapsed.
- December 1990 = Ran out of money
- March 1991 = 2/3 staff sacked, administrators called in, assets were frozen.
- June 1991 = Ceased Trading
- At their peak in the 80s, indie labels acounted for 40% of the market store
-> Threatened the majors to the extent that they began to emulate indie labels.

- Geoff Travis and Jeanelle Lee ventured into A%R in 1993 negotiated a deal for Pulp with Island Rcords. "Common People" was a number 2 in 1995
- They went on to have 5 top 10 hits
(Taught them how to interact with major labels and how to "play the game") 2000 - 2001
- Decided to buy Rough Trade name and ressured the label - flew to NYC to prove how serious they were about signing The Strokes (They marketed and released their EP before they signed a deal -> alternative approach)
- Went on to sign the Libertines 5 months after releasing The Strokes debut album. (Also had Belle & Sebastian and Arcade Fire)
- Signed Duffy in 2004 on a development deal - gave her time to develop as an artist and to produce material that would fit the label. Duffy went on to produce Rough Trades first number 1 single "Mercy" in 2008

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Music Industry Termonology

Convergence of Technology – The coming together of new media technologies

Convergence of Industrial Activity – the merger of hitherto separate industries

Synergy – The coming together of two separate media texts in such a way as to benefit both.

Conglomerate – An international company with a wide and varied range of commercial interest.

Globalisation – The growing tendency of industrial and commercial companies to merge and operate on an international rather than a national or regional basis.

Analogue Music – A method of recording visual and sound images. Analogue technology represents the shape or appearance of an object in an unbroken form.

Digitalisation - The process of converting information into a digital format.

Vertical Integration – The merger or takeover of companies operating at different stages of the production/distribution process.

Horizontal Integration – The merger of competing companies from the same line of business and involved at the same level of activity.

Major Record Label - Major labels are large music production corporations often owned by a parent company.

Subsidiary Label - A record label that is owned by a bigger label e.g. Sony owning Arista Records.

Independent Label -Record companies and music publishers that are not under the control of the big three are generally considered to be independent (indie), even if they are large corporations with complex structures. The term indie label is sometimes used to refer to only those independent labels that adhere to an independent criterion of corporate structure and size, and some consider an indie label to be almost any label that releases non-mainstream music, regardless of its corporate structure.

Niche audience - Technology and industrial practices changed with the post-network era. There is a new drive for niche audiences because audiences are now in full control of what they watch. It is very rare to have a substantially large audience to watch at once, with the few exceptions like X Factor and the Olympics. They specifically target a demographic. For example, Lifetime targets women and MTV targets youth. Today networks and production companies are trying to discover ways to profit greatly by trying new scheduling, new shows, and relying on syndication so television prospers through this new era where the viewer is in absolute control

Mainstream Audience – The uncontroversial, generally accepted attitudes, beliefs and values of the majority of the population.

Fans – Someone who admire another person’s work.

Active Audiences – Any of various theories of audience behaviour that see the audience as active participants in the process of decoding and making sense.

Audiophiles - An audiophile is a person who has a great interest in high-fidelity sound reproduction. Some audiophiles are more interested in collecting and listening to music, while others are more interested in collecting and listening to audio components, whose "sound quality" they consider as important as the recorded musical performance.

Early Adopters - In the diffusion of innovation theory, the minority group (comprising about 14 per cent) of population which, after innovators, is first to try new ideas, processes, goods and services. Early adopters generally rely on their on intuition and vision, choose carefully, and have above-average education level. For any new product to be successful, it must attract innovators and early adopters, so that its acceptance or 'diffusion' moves on to early majority, late majority, and then on to laggards.

Consumption - The process in which the substance of a thing is completely destroyed, used up, or incorporated or transformed into something else. Consumption of goods and services is the amount of them used in a particular time period.

Web 2.0 - Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.

Meta-tags/Personalisation - Personalization involves using technology to accommodate the differences between individuals. Once confined mainly to the Web, it is increasingly becoming a factor in education, health care

Download - transfer a file or program from a central computer to a smaller computer or to a computer at a remote location

Streaming – 1.A method of relaying data (esp. video and audio material) over a computer network as a steady continuous stream, allowing playback to proceed while subsequent data is being received

Peer to Peer - computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application. They are said to form a peer-to-peer network of nodes.

Piracy - The unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work

o    Portability/Miniaturisation - Portability is one of the key concepts of high-level programming. Portability is the software codebase feature to be able to reuse the existing code instead of creating new code when moving software from an environment to another.

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Multi-track -  Having, using, or produced with multiple recording tracks.

Sampling - The technique of digitally encoding music or sound and reusing it as part of a composition or recording

o    Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) - A multifunctional hard disk production system, controlled from a central location, that is integrated with and capable of being networked to other devices, such as audio, video, and MIDI sources, within or among facilities.

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o    A&R – Artists and Repertoire - Artists and repertoire (A&R) is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.

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Record Deal – Contact – Royalties - A record deal is the act of a record label taking on another artist. A contract is what the Artist/band has to sign to be able to record their music and have it distributed. Royalties are what the artist/band get for when a company or person wants to play their music.

Distribution - The way in which something is shared out among a group or spread over an area

Plugging/Marketing - The action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising