The Record Label Experience

In the early 2000's I began to get involved with music production and recording. I started making my own music from home and began to get involved with online music communities where people could share their music and learn tips and tricks for how to get better. After a few years, we started throwing the idea around about starting our own record label to sell the music. With a little planning and organization we decided to give it a try!

So around 2005 we started our own label. I was the main person in charge but we had a group of about 10 artists who all helped out with ideas. We really started from scratch without knowing anything about the business. We picked out a name, got a website, wrote up a contract, and began building it from the ground up.

After a few months we released our first album. Sales were not that great but we did not expect much considering it was a brand new label and no one really knew who we were. We continued to develop the label and released new music over the years.

Overall our artists were pretty talented. Some of them had more success than others. Then a few years in, we decided to try to improve the label more by narrowing down the artist roster. We let go some of the artists who were not quite up to the standard we were aiming for. I was one of the artists at the time and I took myself off the roster and began to put all efforts into managing the label.

Over the years, the label never really earned enough the become a serious business. It was profitable every year taking into account all expenses and earnings, but really it was becoming clear, it was not going to be making a lot of money. After about 5 years, we decided to retire the label.

Around this time, it was becoming easier for artists to release their music on their own by ways such as iTunes so there was not as much need for a record label anymore. The label was good for promotions and helping artists get started by giving advice for how to sell music, but overall after 5 years, it was time to wrap it up.

I learned a lot of skills from the experience including managing people from all over the world, building a website, promotions, graphic design, and finance management. Not to mention it was a fun project to be involved in and I got to hear a lot of great music and help other artists succeed by getting their music out there!