The Music Revolution

“The difference between major and indie labels now has less to do with aesthetics than with the way bands conceive of their careers.” Smaller labels can be just as profitable as big ones. “Now that the outsized profits of the CD era have disappeared, the music business is rapidly retrenching. With a limited amount of money to make—a sum dwarfed by movies, video games, and sporting events—many bands may figure out that major labels’ publicity budgets are an unsustainable luxury. The idea of the label as a tastemaker is not dead, though, regardless of size. The major labels will continue to feed hits to radio and, this October, Matador will celebrate its anniversary with an almost entirely sold-out three-day event in Las Vegas.”