Independent record label

Indies release rock, soul, R&B, jazz, blues, gospel, reggae, hip hop, and world music.

According to SoundScan and the Recording Industry Association of America, indie labels produce and distribute about 66% of music titles, but only account for 20% of sales.

Independent labels have historically anticipated developments in popular music, beginning with the post-war period in the United States.

Sun Records played an important part in the development of rock 'n' roll and country music, working with artists such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Charlie Rich.

[citation needed] In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, the American music business changed as people began to more quickly learn the industry.

Many of these owners realized that whichever label first publishes a song is legally entitled to receive compensation for every record sold.

From the 1940s to 1950s, R&B indie labels such as Savoy, Apollo, King, Modern, Mercury, Imperial, Specialty, Red Robin, Duke and Vee-Jay Records were founded.

[11][12][13] According to Företagskällan, these three artists secured an interest for minor record labels, a situation which otherwise would've led to 'the big five' having full control of the Swedish music scene during the 1980s.

[10] Early independents of the 1970s included labels such as MAM Records,[14][15] set up by the Gordon Mills' Management Agency & Music company.

had been a constant seller for Geoff Travis' Rough Trade Records, but never got into the chart compiled by BMRB (British Market Research Bureau) as a lot of independent stores were not chart return shops and because a more accurate way of collating sales via EPOS (electronic point-of-sale systems) had yet to be introduced.

[citation needed] The "explosion" of the dance music scene in the mid- to late 1980s found labels such as Warp, Coldcut's Ahead of Our Time[42] and Wax On Records set up.

Instead of going down this one-by-one deal route, Cappella's Gianfranco Bortolotti set up Media Records in Brescia, northern Italy[49][50][51] to release his 'commercial European dance music', a set-up which included fifteen studios featuring various production teams working almost non-stop on a huge number of records (usually promoted by a 'front' of models-turned-singers and various rappers) and, in the 1990s, a UK arm which would eventually turn into hard house label Nukleuz, known for its DJ Nation releases.

Both All Around the World/AATW[60] and the Ministry of Sound would be founded in 1991, the former by Cris Nuttall and Matt Cadman, the latter by James Palumbo, Humphrey Waterhouse and Justin Berkmann (though initially as a nightclub in South London, before it became a record company).

David Mimran's Savage Records (known for British band Soho and their Smiths-sampling indie-dance hit "Hippychick" in 1991)[73] was set up by the Swiss teenager in 1986 and funded by his multi-millionaire father.

Due to the almost endless financing of his father and the fact their A&R manager (a Swiss record shop owner called Bernard Fanin) had industry experience, the label managed to make it into the 1990s with a number of dance and hip-hop hits by artists such as Silver Bullet and A Homeboy, Hippy and A Funky Dread (issued on Savage's Tam Tam dance label).

[74][75] Around the time Soho had their top ten UK hit,[76][77] Mimran decided that Savage would not just be a British indie, but would be an American major instead.

Savage Records went on a spending spree in America, which resulted in them opening plush offices on Broadway, hiring Michael Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo and signing David Bowie to a massive $3.4 million record deal, all which ended when Mimran's father, Jean Claude, cut finances.

However, at this point its worth noting that Sony owned half of Creation Records at the time (with Alan McGee too important within the scene to be labelled a 'fake'), that Fauve Records was set up as part of a labels deal between Epic and former dance music label Rhythm King and as the bands got bigger the releases ended up going through major distribution channels like Arvato (its also worth pointing out that BMG would be seen as being one of the largest independent record companies of the 21st century after Sony BMG was dissolved).

[92] Like Savage Records a decade earlier Telstar did not stick to their niche (they started off as a compilations label - similar to Ronco and K-Tel - before signing children's TV stars and dance acts to their XSRhythm and Multiply labels) and tried to operate in a similar marketplace to their compilations partner, the original BMG company.

New independent BMG, which had been spun-out of the Sony BMG joint venture that included Arista and RCA, ended up with the catalogues of Echo, Infectious and Sanctuary (the biggest independent record label in the UK before it went bankrupt), while Cherry Red Records, who had a few 'heritage acts' like Hawkwind[93] on their main label, were mainly concerned with their re-issue labels such as 7T's Records (1970s music), 3 Loop Music (indie music) and Cherry Pop (mainly chart pop from the 1980s).

[94] From 2013, Warner Music had to sell a lot of its catalogue in order to please various anti-monopoly and merger commissions or trade bodies, after buying the large part of EMI (Parlophone) that UMG was not allowed to keep hold of after acquiring the remainder.

[105] In 2017, WMG went on to sell the catalogues of a number of other artists to independent record companies, including Domino (Hot Chip and Buzzcocks), Cherry Red (Howard Jones, Dinosaur Jr. and Kim Wilde),[106][107] Fire (The Lemonheads and The Groundhogs) and Because Music (The Beta Band and various French acts).

[115][116][117][118][119] According to Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun, K-pop company Big Hit Entertainment[120][121] had revenues of 484 billion South Korea won ($436 million US dollars) for the first three quarters of 2020, a period which did not include the release of the Billboard album chart topping BE by BTS,[122][123] but did include the period when the label bought into Han Sung Soo's Pledis Entertainment.

As a driving force in helping indie labels being able to compete worldwide with bigger companies, Wenham featured in Billboard's "Top Women in Music" every year since publication.

[130][131] After Wenham's departure, WIN's director of Legal and Business Affairs, Charlie Phillips, was promoted to the leadership role, named as chief operating Officer.

He would report directly to the recently elected chair, Justin West, of Canadian company Secret City Records.

[132] As of August 2019[update] other member organisations of WIN included A2IM (USA), ABMI (Brazil), ADISQ (Canada – Quebec only), AIM (UK), AMAEI (Portugal), A.S.I.A.r (Argentina), Audiocoop (Italy), BIMA (Belgium), CIMA (Canada), DUP (Denmark), FONO (Norway), HAIL (Hungary), IMCJ (Japan), IMICHILE (Chile) IMNZ (New Zealand), IMPALA (Europe), indieCo (Finland), IndieSuisse (Switzerland), Liak (Korea), P.I.L.

(Israel), PMI (Italy), Runda (Balkans), SOM (Sweden), stomp (Netherlands), UFI (Spain), UPFI (France), VTMOE (Austria) and VUT (Germany).

[133] Particularly active are the trade associations in countries and regions with well-established music markets: AIM (UK), A2IM (USA), AIR (Australia), CIMA (Canada), VUT (Germany), IMNZ (New Zealand), UFI (Spain); IMICHILE (Chile), ABMI (Brazil), and IMPALA (Europe).

)[134] The report valued the Australian recording industry as worth A$399.4 million, sixth largest music market in the world in terms of revenue and ahead of countries with higher populations such as Canada and South Korea.