Understanding the Labels
by David Wilkes
In my last article I spoke about various points of entry for each genre of music. In this article I want to get specific and visit some of the genres of music that I believe readers are involved in, and then name some of the specific labels and acts that have their music on various charts.
First I am going to reiterate the various labels and who owns them so you will have this information handy.
Under the WEA Group (Warners, Atlantic Asylum group): Warner's, Atlantic Records, Reprise Records, Bad Boy Records, Sire Records, Rhino Records, Curb, WEA Latina, Word/Curb Records, V2 Records and others. This group accounts for approximately 19 percent of the market share.
Sony Music Group: Columbia Records, Epic Records, Sony Classical, Sony BMG Notre, SMCMG and others.
BMG Bertlesman Music Group: (the RCA Music Group), Arista Records, J Records, RCA Records, RCA Victor Arista SMG, RCA SMG, RCA Label Group, Provident Records, BMG Classics, Zomba Group, Jive, LaFace, SoSo Def, Star Track, Verity, Volcano, Kinetic, Razor and Tie, Robbins, Sanctuary, Wind-Up Records and others.
The Sony Music Division has approximately 11.27 percent of the total market and the RCA Music Group has about 12 percent, bringing this group to about 23 percent.
The giant of this group is the Universal Marketing Group, with over 31 percent of the market share. Some of the labels in this group include Interscope, A&M, Geffen, Island, Def Jam, Roadrunner, Lost Highway, Universal Records, Universal Nashville, MCA, MCA Nashville, Mercury Nashville, Rounder Records, the Verve Group, which includes Verve, GRP, Classics, Universal Latino, Bohemia, Univision, Fonoivisa, Hollywood Records, Mammoth, Lyric Street, Disney, Concord, Peak Records, Fantasy Records, Curb/MCA Nashville, Hip-O, Varese Records (soundtracks) and many other smaller labels.
I am sure you can look at this group and find labels that you recognize that specialize in the kind of music you do. Just a quick check shows country labels like MCA Nashville and Mercury Nashville, Lost Highway and Lyric Street, and rock labels like Roadrunner, just as if you would look above at the Sony Music Group labels and you will see Wind-Up Records, etc. Doing a fast check you can also easily identify the hip-hop labels as well as the classical and jazz labels.
If you want to find Christian labels, as an example, Word/Curb records in the WEA group, as well as EMI Christian in the upcoming and last of the major label categories, EMI.
EMI/EMM Group: Angel, Blue Note, Astral Works, Capitol, Capitol Nashville, Christian Music Group (EMI), Narada Virgin, Backporch Records. This group is the smallest at a bit over 8 percent, although at this moment it is very hot with three records in the Top 20: Norah Jones, Celtic Women and Corrine Bailey Rae.
As I mentioned in my last article, the last and very interesting is the independents, which specialize in more labels that are genre driven. The indies have approximately 18 percent of the market. If my math is close this should work itself out to 100 percent. Since this is the music business, we will not be too concerned with the numbers and we will let the royalty departments figure it out.
Finally, let's run down some of the independent labels that make up this group. I'll give you some examples of what music they do, but this really should be homework: Tommy Boy, Laser Light/Delta, TVT (hip-hop and rock), Rounder (folk, jazz, bluegrass, blues, almost every genre), Rykodisc (same as Rounder), Telarc (jazz but recently bought by Concord, which is also part of Universal Distribution, so they have major distribution), Caroline Records (an indie in name but owned by EMI), Malaco (gospel), Alligator (blues), Matador, Vanguard Records (a complete indie with a vast catalog of jazz, folk, country, blues, classical), Oh Boy Records (John Prine's label), Sugar Hill (bluegrass), Epitaph Records (rock), New West (contemporary West singers), Ruthless (hip-hop), and of course the biggest independent label and distribution company of all, Koch Records and Koch Distribution. Under this umbrella are Koch Records (hip-hop, jazz, children classical, Broadway, bluegrass) and Shanachie Compendia, among others.
Study all this, look up the labels that record the acts you are similar to, and use this as a point of entry.
David Wilkes is currently the VP of A&R at Koch Records. He also worked for various record labels, including MCA, Sire, Mercury and Artemis, before joining Koch,
