Stephen Malkmus, lead singer of Pavement, put it best when he sang, “Music seems crazy, bands start up, each and every day.” But today, it seems like there’s a new record company tossing their hat in the ring every day, too.
Corporate record labels, independent record labels and on-line record companies are all vying to make their artist achieve success or “break big.” Since the dawn of major and minor, or ‘indie’, labels, there has been a kind of David-and-Goliath rift between the two.
Although all record companies are ultimately interested in sales, it has long been thought that the philosophies are different.

Major or minor?
Ben Goldberg has been on both sides of the record label fence. He worked for a year and a half at Lava Records, a subsidiary label under major label Atlantic Records. He later took a job in promotion and general office management at New York’s reputable indie label Matador Records.
Although he wasn’t at Matador when the company began in 1989, he said that the intention was to create a label that was artist-friendly and had a provocative assortment of music on it from different bands. He said Matador is interested in bands that don’t necessarily have the potential for immediate commercial success, but have an uncompromising musical integrity.
“That’s what I feel the label has become,” Goldberg said.
But there is an array of independent labels, and their goals are often very different. Not all indie labels have adopted Matador’s dedication to diversity. Some labels focus on chronicling a specific genre of music. Dischord Records, for example, has always had the goal of cataloging the Washington, D.C., punk rock scene.
“Some labels just look to seek an identity with a certain style of music and really become known for being experts and leaders in that genre,” Goldberg said. “And then there are other independent labels that love to become part of the huge conglomerate, love to join to major labels.”
Despite their differences, major and minor labels alike are interested in breaking their bands and selling records. But some labels are not so successful, despite starting with a large budget. Zero Hour Records is an example of a label that began with much capital, but failed after not being able to break any of their artists.
“Making a band break big is often very difficult to do,” Goldberg said.
Other labels, like Olympia’s K Records, started out with very little money but eventually grew to become a prominent Northwest label, launching now-national acts like Built to Spill and Modest Mouse.
“They’re built to catalog their scene really well,” Goldberg said. “They’ve been able to have successes with their releases and use that money to fuel more releases.”
Kill Rock Stars is another independent Northwest label that has achieved success. Olympia-based trio Sleater-Kinney released “All Hands on the Bad One” on the Kill Rock Stars label Tuesday. The band’s records have all been critically acclaimed, including their latest album.
Sleater-Kinney frontwoman Corin Tucker said that she is glad that her band is on an independent label instead of a major one.
“From what I know of most of the major labels, they’re in really sad shape,” Tucker said. “It just seems like a really bad time to be on a major label. You don’t know whether or not you’re going to get dropped or what’s going on, or whether the label is going to get bought by someone else. I think we’re feeling really fortunate that we’ve made the decisions that we have and that we’re on Kill Rock Stars.”
Tucker said that knowing everyone at the label, as well as setting goals with them, leads to a sense of comfort they don’t want to part with.
But Deb Bernadini, a publicist at Warner Brothers Records for nearly 11 years, said that if major labels occasionally swallow up bands, it’s usually an accident.
“Not every band succeeds,” she said.
She added that the only difference most bands find when working for a major label is the amount of money that the label has to support their artist with. Although Warner Brothers is a giant company that deals with movies, books and films, all of the divisions are kept separate. Bernadini said her office runs smoothly and not unlike an independent label, and added that Warner Brothers has a good relationship with many independent labels.
Musician Elliott Smith, who moved from Kill Rock Stars to major label DreamWorks, recently told The Rocket that he has benefited from the new direction of his career.
“I’m happy with certain things about it. Like the fact that I have access to more sonic possibilities that I couldn’t have had before. I could never afford to hire an orchestra before,” Smith said [The Rocket, 4/28/00].
But Paul Anthony, the mastermind behind Eugene’s digital indie label Rumblefish, echoes Tucker’s sentiments about major labels.

He said Rumblefish is dedicated to close relationship between the artists and the label, and major labels have lost their connection to the music they produce.
“They have gotten far away from actually hanging out with the artists and really getting to know the music,” Anthony said.

Building a local scene
The Northwest, particularly Seattle, was the unlikely epicenter of the early ’90s rock explosion that ended with the break-up of several leading bands and the shocking suicide of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. As a result, Tucker said, artists in the Northwest are more cautious now when dealing with labels of any kind because of the concern of commercialization of their music.
“I think that people are still a little bit traumatized with everything that happened with grunge music,” Tucker said. “I think that people really felt burned by the music industry and what it does to people — and the kind of attention that came and went without any kind of acknowledgment of the underground music scene.”
Tucker said that she believes the music industry itself has spent too much time and money on creating one-hit-wonder bands.
“They would just sign all these bands, trying to get a hit out of them immediately, spending really exorbitant amounts of money on them,” she said.
But it should be noted that the biggest difference between major and minor record labels is the major label’s need to sell.
“An independent label can have a modest success and do incredibly well, where a major label needs to have those sales,” Goldberg said.
For example, he said, if the band Stereo Lab sells 50,000 copies of their release on indie label Drag City, then Drag City is set for the year.
“They’re happy, and they’ve gotten a good result with it,” he said. Goldberg said that major labels have enormous operating costs, including paying rent on buildings in music hubs such as New York or Los Angeles, and supporting large staffs.
“They have to sell,” he said. “An independent label can be more discriminating and say, ‘We think this band is really great — we don’t know if they’ll be huge — but we think that there will be enough of a market there that we will be able to make a profit from it, even if it’s a modest profit, and we’ll be happy with that.’”
Goldberg said that major labels often pressure their artists in order to boost sales.
“They are asked to make concessions, whether it’s the way they look, they way their sound is, or what they’ll do,” he said, adding that independent labels are often free from such pressures.
Goldberg points to the New York City’s band East River Pipe, who are on independent label Merge Records, as an example. East River Pipe’s frontman F.M. Cornog doesn’t like to play live shows, and Merge so far hasn’t pressured him to do so.
“Of course, the record would sell a lot better if he did go out and tour, because there’s a lot of press and retail potential that can generate from a
tour,” Goldberg said. “But Merge can respect that. I wonder if East River Pipe were e
ver on a major label, if he would be pressured into touring because there would be a lot more money behind them.”
But Deb Bernadini counters that Warner Brothers doesn’t pressure their artists to be anything but their creative selves. She points to Built to Spill as an example. The band went from independent label K Records to Warner Brothers in 1997, and frontman Doug Martsch has said that he doesn’t find the experience unfavorable in the least. Bernadini said that most bands make the transition from a minor label to a major label very easily.
“Built to Spill has done it so well. Bands expect a lot of pressure,” Bernadini said, adding that Warner Brothers believes that artists work best when they aren’t being pressured by their label.
She also said that major labels like Warner have an undeserved negative reputation.
“Major labels absolutely have bad reputations,” she said.
She added that people are often surprised to read about Martsch having a positive experience at a major label.