It’s no secret that the record industry is in trouble. They have moved from selling music as their main source of income to creating revenue through lawsuits against their customers. Anyone can see that this is a piss-poor business model. Yet the people who should be the most learned about the sinking ship that is the record industry as we know it are completely ignoring every sign and hopping aboard the Titanic with reckless abandon.

I’m talking about bands; the poor naive bands who somehow still think that signing a record contract is synonymous with crossing a finish line in first place and being handed your dreams on a silver platter. The poor naive bands who don’t read the fine print, and don’t keep up on the business end of the industry they so sorely wish to be a part of. The bands who sell 2 million albums and end up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to the company who they thought were fulfilling all their wildest dreams.

These are the folks who should know the new first law of the music industry. Do not sign to a large record label. I would go as far as to say not to sign with any record label at all. I don’t think I need one, but I certainly can see where many bands could benefit from being with a smaller independent label. Not every musician can be a business man and vice versa, but i think we are entering an era of music where the power will be placed solely in the hands of the musicians who can think differently about what their music is and how to make money doing what they love.

Here are a few concepts every musician today should understand in order to thrive in the new music economy.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 10:11 am and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.