How much artistic freedom do our artists really have?
Seether's 2005 album: Karma and Effect would have been called Catering to Cowards, but they were instructed by their label to change the name. This begs the question of how much artistic freedom our artists really have, and whether they aren't merely products of what record labels decide is commercially acceptable. What do you think?
- Estelle V says:I think record companies' first and foremost goal is profit. They play it safe to minimize risk and ensure success and therefor profit. This obviously works for mainstream, commercial artists. These artists get signed and have the financial back up and know how that automatically comes with big players that has experience and have been in the game for a long time. The only problem is that it stifles growth and natural progression of music and artist's talents. It is also not fair to consumers - we get to choose what we want to listen too. But they decide what the choices are. In all fairness; I don't think that this is always the case. But unfortunately I think this is mostly true. I also do get where they come from: They invest - they expect returns. To invest a lot of money in an artist that has a very selected or specific market of say 8 000 people of which only 1000 are going to buy the cd doen't make sense from a business point of view. If these artists then want to get signed, they will then have to conform to mainstream ideas. But that is why a website like Streetlamp plays a vital role in this industry. Not only for the more commercial artist to be seen by record labels or people with contacts, but also for those who doesn't neccesarily want to change their artistic identity/who doesn't fall into the category of "commercially acceptable" to find their market.