A lot of people dream of being signed by a major record company. The dream is often rooted in misconceptions about the record business and what it’s truly like to be a musical artist. But getting signed in this day and age makes little sense for many artists.
A lot of them do not realize how competitive the industry is, and we’re not talking about rival labels here. Sometimes, the worst competition comes from within. If a record company sees another artist as more profitable than you, then they could focus on them and let your career fall to the wayside. This is only one of the dangers of getting signed to a major. Let’s take a look at some of the reasons why you should think twice about signing a record deal.
No Creative Control
One of the most frustrating things about being signed with a music label is that they’ll have control over your artistic expression. Depending on the term of the contract, they can decide to not let your record out unless they approve of it. This means that you could create the album of a lifetime and never be able to release it because some executive didn’t like it.
And forget about releasing it later either. If a record label says that you can release work, you won’t be able to unless you have control over your masters, which is not the norm in the industry.
Being Independent is Easier than Ever
One of the biggest benefits of being a signed artist used to be the ability to get mass distribution. It made more sense to sign to a label when you needed physical records to be in every major record store and department store in the country. Not so much when virtually anyone can get their music on Spotify and other streaming services these days.
Another reason why people used to sign with major record labels was so they could get music from top-level producers. But even they have lost some relevancy over the years, and there are very few producers today that you can name from memory. That’s because people will judge the quality of production by how good it sounds, not how much the producer is respected by the industry.
Any artist could get a record from a service like Soundful Music that will sound just as good as any of the top tracks you hear on the Billboard 100 and blow up. There’s no need to sign just so you can get a track from Max Martin or Pierre Bourne when you could get one that sounds just as good or even better for a fraction of the cost, so consider this when making your decision.
Less Money
The last, but probably most important reason why signing a major record deal is not always the best idea is that they will be taking a huge chunk of your money. Even the best deals won’t get the artist more than 15% of their record sales while you will keep most of the proceeds from your record sales if you record independently, so think about that as well
Signing with a record label is not necessarily the best choice for everyone. So, before you assume that it’s the only way to go, look at both sides of the coin.
