Ask any respectable artist (read: one with a likely career in the industry) about a 360 record deal and they’ll tell you that it’s nothing short of a pact with the devil. For decades, labels have charged copious amounts of dollars for recording, manufacturing and distributing albums, but the show money was always their bread and butter. But according to Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music Group, the option to have the label in your pocket every turn of the way is no longer an option — it’s become mandatory.
Bronfman argued to a hostile crowd that it doesn’t make sense for labels to pour money into artist development when CD sales, their primary source of revenue, continue to decline (although he did say that digital sales now make up 20% of their revenue). Without other ways to make money from an artist, he said, they wouldn’t continue to promote artists.
What all this boils down to is record labels becoming increasingly disconsolate that they’re living in a world where artists are growing less dependent on them. Does a Drake or U-N-I need a record label to give away free music at one of their shows or online?
Let’s be real here.
Artists are accomplishing more and more without the security blanket of a major corporation so who’s going to feel pressured to split every slice of the pie with a company that can’t even promote their product to the fullest extent of their dollar?
I'm already ahead of the pack...what I'm doing will give me the biggest 360 Deal in history....Mark my words
via Smokinsection
