New Labels... too much?

[ether]

I played breaks/hardcore from 94/95 thru to about 2001, when nuskool started to take over the big beat sounds. So much crap to wade through, but so many great chunes as well. I seriously miss going to the shops every wednesday & rooting thru all the releases I'd have a pile & my boy would have a pile and when we walked out of there, there was stuff I got he wasn't feeling, he got some stuff I wasn't feeling, and then there were tunes that we would 'share' until the other got his copy.

Same shit, different pile. Choice is good, because one man's garbage is another man's gold yeh!

don't agree in the slightest, seemed to have spent half my life wading through shed loads of mediocre dnb twelves, only to discover 1 tune in 100 was worth buying.

in a scenario where a scene is flooded with artists and labels nothing can ever be that anthemic, as scenes become evermore fractured, sounds don't have longevity, its for poor artist development, its great in thoery that everyone should be able to put out tracks, but in my experience quality control goes out the window, fewer risks are taken as the market becomes more competative and labels loose a strong identity.

[seckle]

I'm torn on the issue. In theory it seems great for hundreds of labels to exist so that everyone's music has a chance to be heard but in reality, it can be really damaging.

Working so closely within the drum and bass scene for so long and seeing it go into this destructive pattern really changed my mind, despite how appealing the idea of it is. It used to be that you had a core group of labels then some smaller offshoot or alternative labels. It was a huge accomplishment to be signed and there were more centralized labels with families of producers rather than someone releasing on 20 diff labels in a year (not that there's anything wrong with that in theory either). but since there wasn't an oversaturation, the music sold incredibly well and the sales numbers were large then.

As the years go on, suddenly everyone and their grandmother has a label. Artists suffer as well, the less copies each release sells. Everyone's a "figure in the scene", so to speak and nobody feels they should really have to buy tunes anymore and sales shrink significantly. Eventually it leads to less and less people just being comfortable being simply fans and supporters - which in essence is really what a scene needs the most! Along comes digital only labels, making it even easier to have your own label. As I said... theoretically it is fantastic to have so many outputs but eventually it diminishes the overall fan base in a big way.

It's ideal but not feasible within scenes which aren't selling like 5k or more copies of every release. When there's an over saturation of releases in a small scene, people usually can't afford to purchase every record that they'd like to. In addition to that, everyone gets sorted because they're a somebody. It's just pretty detrimental although it'd be wonderful if it wasn't.

wise wise words.

respect inaya!!! one of the longtime soldiers!

[alex deadman]

There was a time when fuk all came out but it was all of extremely good quality. (ie late 05)
That time has now passed.
People should embrace the growth of dubstep, now there is room to explore different styles and subgenres and generally broaden the scene.
There must be a balance of imitators and orginators.
Quality Control is vital. Whatever you're trying to do within dubstep, do it well and appreciation will follow. If it's impossible to get a P&D deal maybe that's a message, get back to work!

[sixdegrees]

People who start labels need to think of the scene and what direction they want to take it in. Whether they want to explore new sounds and infuse them into the dubstep genre and keep it fresh (Which i think HotFlush is tick for) Or Send it into a downward spiral, by saturating it with release after release with the same old sounding tracks, which people are already getting bored with otherwise this kind of discussion wouldn't be going on.

Keep the ideas flowing and the mind open

[ztone]

good labels allways survive. argon is good example. every 12" is 100% quality.

[pdomino]

who listens to tunes they get sent though?
who plays new tunes by new people?
not many - if any.

I disagree. The forum is a big example.
Its probably the main way unknowns get known, and people like me who dont get sent shit.