So You Wanna Be a Rock Star?

There's a lot of great music out there. And there are musicians who deserve to be heard, but never manage to pierce the veil of commercial radio. Then there are some who don't want to. They're content to do their thing their way - far away from the media machine.

No doubt, there are as many definitions for indie, or independent musician, as there are musicians, but in short, it means someone not signed to one of the major record labels. There have always been musicians who have bucked the system and done whatever they wanted to do, so the history of indie music is not easy to trace. Some consider the late 60's as the real beginning of the movement because that's when the record labels began to monopolize the airwaves.

Indie music has probably always existed, though there are people who insist that the term didn't exist until the 1990's. That may have something to do with the advent of the Internet, which has inarguably made some things easier for musicians while giving ulcers to the major labels.

Getting the music heard is necessary for it to sell. That used to mean radio play, but again, because of the Internet, that isn't entirely true any more. Anyone can start a website or use a site such as MySpace to post and promote their music. Expensive studio time isn't even a requirement any more. Music can be recorded on something as common as a personal computer with easy-to-use recording software. They can pack and ship CDs from their kitchen, or there are even retail outlets, such as CDBaby, that can sell an independent musician's music digitally or ship CDs worldwide.

Radio is still an important component to the system, but since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted, the majority of radio stations in the United Sates are owned by only a few corporations. That makes for a lot of homogeny on the radio dial.

The Act was intended to promote competition, but it seems the opposite has happened. That is, in part, because the rule limiting the umber of radio stations a single company could own was overturned. The number of stations one company can own is now based on the size of the market, and there is no limit on the number that can be owned nationally. Take, for example, Clear Channel. Today this one company owns over 1,200 stations in the US; or 1 in every 10.

Disc jockeys used to decide what they would play, but that hasn't been the case in decades. Thanks to playlists created in one place rather than by each station or individual disc jockeys, corporate-owned radio stations all play pretty much the same thing from city to city. These stations are also locked in to playing only one genre of music. There are, however, radio stations dedicated to finding and playing independent music of unlimited variety. College towns still tend to have independent radio stations, but here is another way the Internet has changed things. Many broadcast stations stream their programming over the Internet, but there are also stations with Internet-only play.

But is it possible to make money without a big record deal? You might be surprised to find out that a musician can potentially make more money from CD sales doing it on his own.

With a big-time recording contract, the costs of production, promotion, touring and all other expenses aren't paid by the company. They come out of the artists' royalties, and if the artist received an advance, it must be paid back - also out of the royalties. And unless the musician also writes his own music, he won't even earn royalties from the song being on the radio or in other broadcasts, except under specific circumstances. That is, the song must be played in the digital arena (a webcast or on satellite radio) is non-interactive, and the listener is a subscriber to the service playing the music. This all came about because of the Digital Performance Rights in Sound Recordings Act of 1995.

Of course, radio (performance) royalties may not be all they're cracked up to be. In order to even be tracked for radio play or other public use, the song has to be registered with one of the performance rights organizations (in the United States, they are BMI, ASCAP, SEASAC and Sound Exchange). The PRO keeps a record of all public uses of their members' music and users (radio stations, television producers, etc) pay a fee to the PRO for the use. The PRO issues a check to the artist for all the times his music was used in a given time period, less operating expenses. Each PRO has its own tracking system and they each use sometimes complicated proprietary formulas to determine payment. It's far from a perfect system.

If a musician records his own CD, rather than getting a small percentage of the sales in royalties, he gets all the proceeds. He doesn't have to share royalties with a publisher and doesn't have to give away rights to the music. According to Jana Stanfield's book, The Musician's Guide to Making and Selling Your Own CDs & Cassettes, her self-promoted and self-sold albums bring in about $30,000 a year. Of course, doing it this way requires the musician to spend a lot of time marketing and not making music.

There's another option - sort of in the middle of a major recording contract and going it totally alone. Perhaps because it got more difficult for artists to get signed to a big company, or because of the musicians' dissatisfaction with the big companies, indie record companies started to form. These companies often have a specialized niche, such as a focus on local talent - for instance, Seattle's Sub Pop Records was the original label for Nirvana and Soundgarden.

The smaller the label, though, the smaller the budget. An indie company may have the advantage of giving the artist more attention, but most likely won't be able to spend the big bucks necessary to get a radio hit. An article written by Bruce Duff of Triple X Records, says that it's all hard work with a minimal profit margin, but that the percentage of indie CDs that make money versus those that don't is bigger because of the frugal way they must produce and promote.

But for a lot of musicians, it's more about the music than the money. Many are content just to do their thing without having to answer to the big-wigs at a major label or risk getting lost in the shuffle of the next new thing. They don't want to worry about pouring their hearts into an album that will just sit on the shelf of a major label. And they're happy to play to a handful of people in a coffee shop rather than to thousands in an arena.

Then again, some of today's most successful artists started out on indie labels - such as the aforementioned Nirvana and Soundgarden. These bands were able to cultivate a grass-roots following that followed them to the big-time. Some artists even do it the other way around. They're lucky enough to get a major contract, make a name for themselves and then start their own label. For instance, country superstar, Toby Keith, started Show Dog Nashville. In addition to releasing Keith's albums on the label, Show Dog is home to Mac McAnnally and several up-and-coming artists.

The music business is complicated. Musicians have to decide what they want before figuring out how to get it, and there's no right way for everyone.

Sources:

http://www.indieupdate.com/category/indie-music-history/

http://radio.about.com/library/weekly/aa020403a.htm

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/top-403.htm

http://www.consumersunion.org/telecom/lessondc201.htm

http://www.music-tech.com/business.php?subaction=showfull&id=1112329919&archive=&start_from=&ucat=2&

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/pl104-39.html

http://www.janastanfield.com/store/book.asp

http://www.record-labels-companies-guide.com/article-independent-labels.html

http://www.discogs.com/label/Triple+X+Records

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-royalties7.htm