TH: Contextual Research

The Music Industry

• Who owns the record labels? Within the music industry, there are a large variety of genres and in order to cope with this a large amount of record labels are created. However sometimes these labels are owned by bigger conglomerates, and are subsidiaries of the brand. For example ‘Conglomerate Records’ is a record label set up by hip hop artist Busta Rhymes, and the label is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. On the contrary every so often a record label is primarily created by an artist. An example being Roc-A-Fella Records is a record label founded by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter.

• What is involved in a record deal? Wikipedia defines a record deal as “A recording contract (commonly called a record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote”.

• How are musicians promoted? Musicians are promoted and advertised to a consumer in a variety of ways, however in all of these methods they are promoted as a product the potential consumer should buy into. These methods include; TV advertisement; music video; radio slots; magazine covers; etc. Often artists can subconsciously promote themselves just by being somewhere, as often fans can enjoy sighting their favourite stars at premieres and fashion shows. Many musicians have large advertising campaigns before the release of a new album, this is either run by private marketing agencies or record labels.