Why can't you be big without a record label?

Here's a scenario: If you went and produced a song, your lyrics and your backing track, would you know where to go from there? Probably not. Maybe post it on Youtube or on social networking sites, but your success wouldn't be comparable to those who are with a record label. As people have already mentioned, record labels know what they are doing - They are able to get your material into shops very easily and promote you as an artist to the public very effectively.

But of course you cannot stereotype. I don't know any off the top of my head, but there are probably artists out there who made it big without the aid of a record label. On the flip, there are those who have been signed to a label and didn't gain any great success.

Resources.

The marketing, the contacts and the gigs record labels can get you can be very difficult for an independent artist to get quickly. Unless your dad is a very rich man, who supports you your gonna waste alot of time doing it yourself.

Here are some problems indie artists face, Can i self record, self market and self release my own album if yes then how many copies (not likely to be in the 100 thousands or millions).Do i have the resources to finance my own music videos, gig equipment, producers,photoshoots etc do i have the contacts to get my stuff on tv and radio stations worldwide.

The other problem is when you send you music video to mtv for example the require info from your distribution label to the producer, and the bigger the name the more likely they will be to look at it first. Imagine ure submission form says produced by Birdman, label Cash Money there most likely to look at that first over the ones that have small time or local video producer

The other thing is labels can get you lots of gigs, they can have you giging 2/3 of the year at huge internationl festivals, how many gigs ayear can you get that have more than 1000 people ?

So thats basically why we run to labels, although it mostly relates to a lack of finances to do it ourselfes, but if you can do it yourself its advisable

Beth Hart has sold over 1 million albums. Know who she is? The key thing is that record companies still hold the advertising money. The cost of the big name females is $3 million in promotion money per record plus one million dollars per single. Lady Gaga ended up being the top magazine cover girl for magazines in terms of sales. Beyonce got a $50 million contract to pitch Pepsi. It's just not about singing anymore (those two lip sync anyways).

Adele saved the music disc industry :D

Anyways, I really think Internet ( and iTunes ) is the proper way to distribute music, not discs.

And artists usually make money from live concerts, not discs ( Adele is a bit of an exception :p )

One thing about most Artists is that they aren't the best businesspeople. It's one thing to become popular and it's another thing to understand how to profit from their popularity.

This is why Artists generally sign to labels. It's not that Artists can't be "Big" without labels, they just do not know how to earn from it. Justin Bieber was already "Big" before he signed with Scooter Braun. He simply didn't know how to build on his popularity.

This is why it seems like all the "Big," popular Artists are all signed to labels... Because they turn to labels in order to profit from their success. Labels look for "Big" Artists and "Big" Artists look for labels. It becomes a trade off, Artist Branding in exchange for monetary compensation.

The record company does marketing and they handle distribution. It is easier for the big companies to get the product in the stores and to advertise. They have the muscle and know how to do it.

Similar in movies and books.

The big companies have the money to find the talent and pay for it.

yet each and every guy or woman became as quickly as led to sense that Padme died in labour on the area of the twins. Obi-wan, Organa and Yoda have been the only ones who knew the fact. As a procedures as R2D2 knows of, Luke became as quickly as in basic terms some guy on Tatooine

you can.

for instance, macklemore. seems like he just had a #1 single.