Do You Really Need A Record Label In 2023?

Do You Really Need A Record Label In 2023? Transcript

00:00:00 – 00:18:09

Do you really need a record label in 2023? What up Smart Rapper. We got to talk about it and you got to love this. Now, in the past, labels, recording companies, record companies were the ones who ran the show. They ran everything right. And it took a big company and a lot of money to make and ship CDs and deal with breakage costs.

00:18:09 – 00:34:15

All this stuff with stores you needed factories, warehouses, sales teams, shipping people, freight charges, financial controls, all kinds of stuff if you wanted to sell music. All right. You also had radio departments, all kinds of stuff. You had to have a full promotional team. I’ve got a whole video on all the crazy different departments inside of a major label so that’s why they get so much money for you.

00:34:20 – 00:47:16

But anyway, that’s just not as important anymore because you can do it all yourself. So let’s talk about what you still would need a major label to do in 2023, see if you even care about it. It would still be hard to get your physical product into stores. That includes merchandise if you have it, and CDs in certain countries.

00:47:16 – 01:07:17

Okay. And there’s other things too, that you’re not considering, but now you don’t have to worry about your music being distributed because you can distribute it using stuff like Distro Kid. Now, radio is still important to popular artists, but not nearly as much as it used to be. But believe it or not, a lot of people still listen to radio, but it’s becoming a very, very narrow channel and that means that it only plays a small number of music styles and not that many different songs.

01:07:21 – 01:21:02

And that’s because radio stations aren’t in the business of actually making music. They’re in the business of selling ads. Okay. Getting 16 year olds to 24 year olds is their sweet spot, so they only want to play music that brings in people in that age range, right? Because those people are the most the ones most susceptible to advertising.

01:21:03 – 01:40:16

Okay. On the other side, your streaming playlist. And those are replacing radio because they’re becoming way more important and they’re curated by you, or you see somebody else’s curated playlist and then you take their songs from your playlist. Next, you got to think about the direct relationship with fans. Its a different age. You didn’t, you know, you didn’t use to be able to reach these people.

01:40:16 – 01:54:24

And now with this whole department for that, you can reach your own fans just by being yourself on social media now. And on top of that, when you make a deal with the record company, you give up control of your recordings and other parts of your life, like the ability to do music for movies or commercials, concert videos.

01:54:27 – 02:10:05

You also basically have a boss. You also give up a chunk of your income from both recorded and non recorded areas. So why would you even need a record company in 2023? Because realistically, most of these labels actually hire out a different company that does marketing and promotion because not all of them have their own departments for that.

02:10:05 – 02:26:10

And if it is, it’s really like delegated to another company. You could pay those same companies to do those work that work, believe it or not, they have relationships. But if you’re in the beginning, you don’t really need a record deal, right? You should get good at marketing yourself. You’re creative, you already have all the creative abilities because you are a creative person.

02:26:10 – 02:46:00

You said that you start getting creative with your marketing ideas and campaigns. What’s going to set you apart? It’s a whole other video, but do you really need a record label? Also, think about a people who used to work at these labels weren’t making enough money or weren’t getting recognition. They left all with all their talent and they create marketing companies and they create all of these different things and they know how to do everything from sales to marketing promotion.

02:46:00 – 02:58:08

Again, you can hire these companies if you know you’re going take money back from your stuff. When you do it, you can hire them and you make your money back because that actually markets you enough to get enough streams to get enough momentum. Okay? There’s also the ability for you to get your own distribution, I just got offered a distribution deal.

02:58:10 – 03:11:06

A lot of numbers in that in that amount that it was offering me. Okay. And then they give me that money as an advance. And then guess what? I take that money put into music and I make way more money and they’re only getting they only get 20% of the money that I was having back. But it was it was for three years and it was also had three years worth of music. So that’s why It was such a big thing.

03:11:06 – 03:27:21

But anyway, you just got a little bit smarter. This is Smart Rapper. These tips work on God. Did you know that I have over 100 masterclasses to help musical artists just like you and me get from wherever you are to where you want to be. And this stuff covers every single possible area you can think of and is free to check out.

03:27:21 – 03:42:06

If you click this video, it’s going to show you all of the different masterclasses that I have. And I know at least one of them is going to be right for you. Right click this video. I’m Rob Level from Smart Rapper 450,000 subscribers, almost 50 million views, can’t be wrong. Click this video, check it out and keep hustling and I’ll see you at the top.

Do You Really Need A Record Label In 2023?