I would like to add a label’s perspective to this thread. For everbody that does not happen to know, I run a record label (www.dependent.de)., and we signed Kr-liks project for one disc (Controlled Collapse), but the label had to discontinue, as it was a joint venture with Johan form Suicide Commando, and could not continue, although it worked kind of well.
Anyway, the first question an artist should ask himself is: What is my goal, why am I making music? If it is self-expression, art, hobby-approach then there is nothing wrong with DIY. Even if you want to make some bucks with it you can still consider the DIY route.
However, know this: What a (professional) label does is (usually) the following:
Selection/Filtering (A&R)
Quality control
Distribution
Manufacturing
Financing
Promotion
Marketing,
Networking
Licensing
Accounting
All these activities still make sense, although the market its (undeniably) shifting. It is currently shifting in a direction that does not really support creating added value with music at all, and this hurts labels and artists alike. There is way to much cheap and bad music out there, so it becomes more and more important to even reach a basic attention level.
This means that the above tasks are more and more eroding. This makes labels look bad, but DIY does not exactly get easier either, in fact it gets equally (or even more) problematic. Yes, you need to sell 5 times more CDs through a label to make about the same money, but please don’t forget that normally the bands income consists of income through live, merch and record sales, while a (successful) record is usually the ticket to be able to play live and sell merchandising.
I don’t know ANY music groups that do a successful DIY approach in this scene that can afford touring on their own. Correct me if I am wrong. So yes, labels jobs are shifting and not every release through a label model is a success. However, I think the chance of developing a successful career iss still more likely if you go through a label compared to going through DIY.
This is not tring to “diss” DIY, but I can hardly see a musician that knows how to it from scratch, and even in a DIY-world you don’t have an infinite amount of time and tryouts.
