Friday, October 30, 2015

Independent Record Labels vs. Major Labels.

Run for Cover Records is independent record label based in Boston, MA. They have many different genres of artist who have been on their roster over the past 5 years. Bands like Self Defense Family, Title Fight, GDP, Teen Suiced, Tigers Jaw, Pity Sex, Elvis Depressedly, Crying and Cloakroom are just a small amount of artist who are or have been signed to RFC. These bands range from hardcore/punk to rap and everything in-between. This label distributes it music in almost all platforms possible. They sell every release on vinyl, mp3, CD and sometimes cassette tape.

Although the range of genres is so wide the target audience for RFC is the DIY music scene. This label promotes their artist by social media, occasional magazine spreads, billboards, street teams, and sending the artist on tours to get exposure.

A major problem right now in the vinyl industry is production times. Independent record labels have been pressing vinyl for a long time, even before the recent trend in vinyl in corporate stores like Urban Outfitters or Target. Now with the growing need for vinyl bigger record labels are being put ahead of independent records labels in line for production. This makes the independent music scene to evolve slower because records now take about 8-9 months to go through full production. When bigger labels can have their records pressed and on the shelves in about 3. This used to be the case for all labels but big companies are taking over and the smaller ones are suffering.


The quality of music is very good. The subject matter is relatable to its audience, has real meaning behind it and overall is enjoyable to listen to.

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