Record Label Research Project

Record Label Research project

EMI or Electric and musical industries limited is one of the biggest record labels there is, it operates worldwide with different divisions for different countries. It also owns several other record labels, with a huge amount of artists working for the label overall. Famous bands to be with them include the Rolling Stones, Blur, the Beastie Boys and Radiohead. However a lot of artists have left since 2007 since EMI was overtaken by Terra Firma Capital Partners. What I’ve found more interesting is the way that EMI owns several different record groups and labels, and it seems to group these differently according to genre- this of course makes sense however it hadn’t occurred to me beforehand that record labels that had names obviously connoting a certain genre of music (i.e. Angel for classical music (owned by EMI based in UK)) would have counterparts that are for very different styles of music. I suppose this is probably a result of the bigger labels buying out all the independent ones. Because of this- unbiased (at least when concerning genre) companies owning all the labels regardless of the labels original ideology. Despite these ideologies being continued by companies like EMI the fact that they are doing this for each different label they own, targeting a different audience each time- it seems label names are as much a selling point as anything else.

Sony BMG another large record label has been dealing with the change in the way music is enjoyed in recent years. They won the first file sharing copyright infringement case to be held in front of a jury against Jammie Thomas in 2007 over 24 songs which she put onto the internet. In 2008 they were sued for displaying Children’s’ personal information on their website without parental consent, I believe this is an example of the company feeling threatened by the recent increase in music being downloaded for free online, record labels are pushing for audience participation online to try and get people buying there music again in the same way. However the difference being record labels are bound by laws which means there is little they can do in retaliation. Beyonce, Bob Dylan, Christina Aguilera, Foo Fighters have all worked with Sony BMG

Warner Music Group has been trying to get it’s music available legally online for the last few years, making a deal with Amazon in late 2007 to sell it’s music as Amazon mp3s and being the first record label to forge a deal with YouTube however that relationship broke down recently with music videos from Warner only appearing back on YouTube from September 2009, It also joined Spotify in 2008 along with the Song BMG, UMG and EMI. Jay-Z Johnny Cash, Green Day, Marilyn Manson and Oasis have all worked with Warner Music Group.

Universal Music group, in a similar manner to the way Warner Music group did have begun removing videos of their artists from YouTube as well as videos of other people referencing or covering music owned by UMG removing over 10,000 videos as recently as December 2009 the issue is obviously still causing them trouble and they have been unable to work out a deal with YouTube. It has also limited all songs under it on MySpace to 90 seconds. 50 Cent, ABBA, D12, Kanye West and Lady Gaga have all been signed with UMG.

Record Label Research Project

by Pieter Jollans

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