Record Labels

   Record Labels are companies that produce, market and distribute music with/ for the artist. Like many industries there are major companies and independent companies. Independent companies are often smaller and wont have as many artist/ "big" artist as they often don't have huge financial backing, for example the British, Black Crow Records. However, the major conglomerates rule the industry and sign many "big" artists making lots of money. They often have a company who owns them/ a parent company. The major 3 in the music industry are Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group.


In the majority of cases, if a band wants to be successful they need to be signed by a major record label or a subsidiary of one as they'll have major financial backing. In my Genre the most successful bands are with a major company. For example, Slipknot are signed by Roadrunner records, which is a subsidiary of Warner Music Group.



Roadrunner mainly concentrate on metal bands as they have signed Slash and Nickleback. They mainly distribute their bands music through Amazon and Itunes, but on their website they have direct routes to buy CD's and tickets for concerts online. On their websites there are direct links to facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google to allow customers to follow their bands. Social media is very important to them as it looks like their bands are mainly promoted social media rather than their own websites. This is called Web 2.0 and is the most common way of distributing music and bands as it is world wide.