Indie Artists Find Success on a Different Level

Posted by Alona in For the LadiesMar 6th, 2011 | no responses

Many singer songwriters today are also indie artists. Being an Indie artist is not necessarily a new phenomenon. There have always been people who played their music and traveled around making a living without a major record label to support them. What has changed in recent years is the idea that a life of being an independent artist is somehow less desirable than being a signed artist that has a deal with a major label. In fact some may say that the former is now more desirable than the latter. Many artists can now make their living without being signed to a major label. In fact in the late eighties major record labels, which operate on a data driven bottom line really dropped the ball with independent type artists. Artists that performed out of the mainstream music genres suddenly found they had no place at a major label.

College Radio has Always Been a Good Market for Indie Singer Songwriters

While the music industry had pretty much fine tuned and narrowed down what they would offer the public down to a formula pop driven platform. College radio in the mid-eighties had a peek into the future of music. The artists that got heavy airplay on college radio also got virtually no mainstream recognition, in the early part of their career, yet they were well-known by college students across the country. In time some became so huge that major labels sought them out and they were signed to lucrative deals. Others remained independent and either remained self managed or signed to smaller independent labels, making their money by traveling the college circuit.

Today the Internet is a Major Tool for Indie Artists

Today the internet has had a similar effect on music artists. The major difference is many of today’s singer songwriters do not choose to sign to a major once they get “discovered” by the mainstream. Many began using social media and the other tools of the internet to gain an audience. They self produced their material and distributed it via the internet with no major distribution deal and they are choosing to remain that way even as they have gained large amounts of fans. Even some established artists have gone the Indie route. They are choosing to keep their publishing and distribution rights in lieu of giving up those rights and the cash that goes with them to a major label.