Record Labels

Major Record Labels

Britain is highly acclaimed for it's variety of music throughout history. Influential and 'historic' artists are admired and shared all over the world- but their home remains this small island. Good examples of Artists and/or bands that origionate from Britain and have been majorly successful worldwide include the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Muse, Queen, David Bowie and One Direction.

Record labels are responsible for the legal managing, advertising and production of these artists, the bigger the artist, the higher chance they have of being part of a larger record label- these are castle industries, as they have a broad span of heriachy roles that contribute towards the company, (E.g- Manager > Assistant Manager > Sales Assistant).
EMI records is one of the biggest UK record labels that has been established sinse 1972. Other labels also include Island records, Universal Music Group and Sony ME (music entertainment). Below are a few examples of who the mentioned record labels manage.

EMI- The Beatles, Lily Allen, David Bowie, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Foo Fighters, McFly and  Sigur Rós.

Island Records- Ben Howard, Bombay Bicycle club, Florence + The Machine, The Fratellis and The Killers. 

Universal Music Group- 50 Cent, Abba, Akon, The Black Eyed Peas, Bob Marley, Enter Shikari, Dizzee Rascal and Guns 'N' Roses.

Sony ME- AC/DC, Adele, Beyoncè, Bob Dylan, Calvin Harris, The Fray, Foster the People, Jimi Hendrix and Newton Faulkner.  

Many large record labels hold subsidiary labels, for example, Sony ME holds 'Columbia records', 'Epic records' and 'RCA records'. Due to lack of funds, 'Columbia records' had been disbanded and all of the artists were transferred to the other subsidiary labels. Sony ME is interesting as it also created a partnership record label with Simon Cowell- 'Syco' records, focused on the marketing and production for film, music and television. Syco TV is in large partnership with 'ITV', hence we find its key shows 'The X Factor' and 'Britain/ America's Got Talent". This is also explanatory to Sony ME being the record label for the successful winners of these programmes.


Independent record labels

As well as the major record labels, there are independent labels. As opposed the major record labels, independent record labels are more known to be "cottage industries", as they usually have one store with few staff.
'Rough Trade' is most likely the best known independant record label- especially within the indie genre. It was established in 1978 and was originally a simple store to sell vinyl records. It did so well that eventually, it began managing artists, such as 'The Smiths', 'The Strokes' and 'The Libertines'. 

Independent record labels arguably offer more to their audience than major record labels do. This is because they are of a less mainstream repetiore than that of the major record label- therefore have the ability to offer listeners unique, less well-known and  'anti-capitalist' music as good as the music larger companies may produce. This idea is attractive to a widespread audience, and therefore the record label is successful in offering the audience a decent and individual approach to music. However, as the music is less well known, the record labels earn far less than that of a larger company would- this in retrospect could suggest that the labels struggle greatly with finance.