New Labels... too much?

[Jubz]

The reason the labels put out shit is because the dubstep audience these days likes shit.

[wil blaze]

im not so sure about the whole "only releasing tunes by people you know" thing being that much of a problem in dubstep, it seems to me that at the moment when someone comes with something different and quality it gets snapped up pretty sharpish. I've signed things from people i have never met after one listen before when its grabbed me, and i know a lot of the big labels have too

exactly.


if your music is good enough then you shouldn't have to "know people" to have it signed.

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

absolute rubbish!

are you smacked?

[wil blaze]

i think there are 2 distinct types of label in dubstep. those with vision and those without. those with really craft something unique. those that don't just bosh stuff out.

i think having a strong label identity is as important as having strong tunes. this is something which is crafted through consistent quality output which fits into the label's ideals. think hotflush, think deep medi, think hyperdub.

What if your vision for the label is not to have a specific identity attached to your label, but to put out consistenly good releases across all sounds and styles?

i don't think it has to be a sonic thing. you can still have an aesthetic identity which works across different styles and sounds.

i hear you but am finding the "aesthetic" concept hard to visualise cos i know you're not just talking about the artwork being the same...

care to elaborate on that statement...? i am interested in your train of thought!

[sines]

I started a label during this thread.

[bypass]

I think that there are lots of people writing music (or start writing music) with a release in mind ... and if that is your main goal you have a problem. Getting your music released is a very nice bonus but I can't be your motivation.

And I believe it are a lot of those people who get frustrated after a while, set up a label and release crap.

[incyde]

i think something which hasn't really been stressed enough yet is the art of trawling through for new producers. don't let stuff come to you. stray away from the dubs section of this forum and dig deep and don't be affraid to go out on a limb for something you believe in but always keep in the back of your mind having boxes and boxes of 12' frisbees laying around your flat.

to be trite: it's not just who you know, but how you know

once you've crafted your label identity then tunes will come to you because producers will see a fit with their work and your label. or at least aspire to be on your label because they respect it.

i know the successful labels do their 'a&r' very well. you might just happen across the next burial or skream. if you're a label who signs an artist of sufficient potential they will help your label grow.

look at hotflush. a few core artists established the label and they continue to release those artists whilst simultaneously signing fresh new talent. i think for any label today hotflush is a pretty good roll model.

and of all the new labels (and no offense to anyone as there is a lot of great music coming out on some of the start ups) i think the hessle boys are getting things dead right.

but this said i guess it depends on your goals. if it's simply to put out the tunes you like, then crack on. but if you want to build something special the work needs to go in on every level.

and let's be real, all dubstep labels are still very much in the underground model, some are trying to operate bigger than they are but they are failing and letting down artists and the music. all that dubstep labels do is put out your records, there is very little investment in their artists and trying to build them. alot of this work in dubstep has been done by booking agents rather than the labels.

100% ON POINT

[quark]

new labels are a vital part of the democratisation of the music industry - i think chuck d said something like that, he's always banging on about 1 milion artists, half a million labels.
as aconsumer i feel more at ease if the label is signing other artists, i guess so theres no subliminal nepotism coming into the quality control. but artists are often strongly associated with labels in the underground music scene so i guess theres not much difference, errrr, not sure where i'm going with this....more music =

[shonky]

The reason the labels put out shit is because the dubstep audience these days likes shit.

There's that too. I would have thought that the music should get more open the more people get into it, but it seems most popular at it's least imaginative. Only Hessle are doing anything majorly different to all these other labels that seem to have cropped up in the last year.

[metalboxproducts]

The reason the labels put out shit is because the dubstep audience these days likes shit.

There's that too. I would have thought that the music should get more open the more people get into it, but it seems most popular at it's least imaginative. Only Hessle are doing anything majorly different to all these other labels that seem to have cropped up in the last year.

YES. YES. YES. Bit polite though, those lads. lol. Just kidding. More power to them.

[incyde]

The reason the labels put out shit is because the dubstep audience these days likes shit.

There's that too. I would have thought that the music should get more open the more people get into it, but it seems most popular at it's least imaginative. Only Hessle are doing anything majorly different to all these other labels that seem to have cropped up in the last year.

YES. YES. YES. Bit polite though, those lads. lol. Just kidding. More power to them.

Yeah, seriously. Hessle is on it. All the forthcoming stuff I've heard is solid and original.

[Jubz]

The reason the labels put out shit is because the dubstep audience these days likes shit.

There's that too. I would have thought that the music should get more open the more people get into it, but it seems most popular at it's least imaginative. Only Hessle are doing anything majorly different to all these other labels that seem to have cropped up in the last year.

YES. YES. YES. Bit polite though, those lads. lol. Just kidding. More power to them.

Yeah, seriously. Hessle is on it. All the forthcoming stuff I've heard is solid and original.

Agreed.

[markle]

it is most definitely about who you know, to think otherwise is unrealistic. that said, i've searched out and got to know tens if not hundreds of people because i've heard and wanted to support their music.

The biggest lesson anyone can learn about business is people make the world go round.

[dz]

great thread. seriously.

The biggest lesson anyone can learn about business is people make the world go round.

here here!

El Sudor wrote:
incyde wrote:
unlikely wrote:
im not so sure about the whole "only releasing tunes by people you know" thing being that much of a problem in dubstep, it seems to me that at the moment when someone comes with something different and quality it gets snapped up pretty sharpish. I've signed things from people i have never met after one listen before when its grabbed me, and i know a lot of the big labels have too


exactly.


if your music is good enough then you shouldn't have to "know people" to have it signed.


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


absolute rubbish!

are you smacked?

I play MOST of what i get sent. take a look at any of my t/l's - i could care less about a name - it's the music! and mainly because yeah, there aren't enough labels for all the serious chunes out there atm.

[sully_shanks]

The reason the labels put out shit is because the dubstep audience these days likes shit.

There's that too. I would have thought that the music should get more open the more people get into it, but it seems most popular at it's least imaginative. Only Hessle are doing anything majorly different to all these other labels that seem to have cropped up in the last year.

YES. YES. YES. Bit polite though, those lads. lol. Just kidding. More power to them.

Yeah, seriously. Hessle is on it. All the forthcoming stuff I've heard is solid and original.

Agreed.

yeh hessle is 1 to watch closely!

[efa]

I have heard that a lot of Distro's will approach an artist and "encourage" them to start a label. Labels will come and go but good artist's are here to stay so I see why they would want to guarantee some consistency.

[sines]

So since this thread has started I started 2 labels and 1 sub label.

[inaya]

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.

[obscene]

so choice is a bad thing? the strong will survive, gain reputation and bring happiness (so you won't have to trawl through massive stacks), the weak will fade and die.

and who knows, once in a while. a hidden gem may appear from nowhere.

[dz]

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!

[sines]

Choice is good, because one man's garbage is another man's gold yeh!