Underground = lack of structure?
Monday, May 21st, 2007
When I thought about Srix’ reasons to abandon DnBnation, I realized his experience matched pretty well with a lot of my thoughts on the state of DnB business, which is combined by four stereotype roles
- Distributors: For the most part, these are professional people organized in a few companies
- Labels: Most of them are managed by semi-professionals, often one- or two-man businesses.
- Producers: Same here
- DJs: Single consumers
If you take a look at the virtual DnB landscape, it’s pretty obvious that distributors are the heavy-weight players, with the (vinyl-based) labels depending on them. The complete stream of money runs through and controlled by them.
Due to their (mostly) semi-professional nature, both labels and producers act on a separate level. You just can’t expect a small label to be available 24/7 (though some really appear to be). Nothing wrong so far. It’s very obvious that we’re not witnessing a highly integrated scene, but instead a loosely coupled net of individuals.
The problem resides in the fact, that many players not only are semi-professional in terms of availability and effort, but also in terms of professionalism. The logical approach (at least how it appears to me) would be to run a label or act as an artist on a lower priority track (compared to whatever job pays the bills), but in that precious time slot act like a highly professional manager. What does that mean?
- Be organized: Contacts, press kits, cash flows, mails
- Be prepared: Have contract resp. billing templates, post envelopes
- Be responsible: Use tools/notes to track things-to-be-done, take care of your artists resp. the labels you work with
- Be communicative: Reply to mails in a timely manner, approach people
- Be an entrepreneur: Realize that it is you who it depends on to run the business, therefore do marketing, be present in public/virtual space, utilize opportunities whenever possible
Especially the last point seems to be highly underrated and can’t be stretched enough. How come people don’t even react when being offered an opportunity to represent themselves? I often come to think that there is quite a bunch of people who are very comfortable with the status of running a label, yet don’t act much. There is a lack of structure in that which in the long run will prove deadly for the vital growth of the scene. Seems some people are so proud to be underground, but in sharp contrast to the picture they have of themselves (symbolized by the inlay of Prodigy’s “Jilted generation” cover), they’re hardly more than losers who found a way to give their unstructured live a meaning instead of a make-over.
If we’re not even able to create a vivd net of people being professional in their devoted spare time, how is anyone from the outside world (print media, big record companies, radio) to take us seriously?! Another opportunity missed.
Technorati Tags: underground, structure, organize, responsible, label, producer, artist, music business
When I thought about Srix’ reasons to abandon DnBnation, I realized his experience matched pretty well with a lot of my thoughts on the state of DnB business, which is combined by four stereotype roles
- Distributors: For the most part, these are professional people organized in a few companies
- Labels: Most of them are managed by semi-professionals, often one- or two-man businesses.
- Producers: Same here
- DJs: Single consumers
If you take a look at the virtual DnB landscape, it’s pretty obvious that distributors are the heavy-weight players, with the (vinyl-based) labels depending on them. The complete stream of money runs through and controlled by them.
Due to their (mostly) semi-professional nature, both labels and producers act on a separate level. You just can’t expect a small label to be available 24/7 (though some really appear to be). Nothing wrong so far. It’s very obvious that we’re not witnessing a highly integrated scene, but instead a loosely coupled net of individuals.
The problem resides in the fact, that many players not only are semi-professional in terms of availability and effort, but also in terms of professionalism. The logical approach (at least how it appears to me) would be to run a label or act as an artist on a lower priority track (compared to whatever job pays the bills), but in that precious time slot act like a highly professional manager. What does that mean?
- Be organized: Contacts, press kits, cash flows, mails
- Be prepared: Have contract resp. billing templates, post envelopes
- Be responsible: Use tools/notes to track things-to-be-done, take care of your artists resp. the labels you work with
- Be communicative: Reply to mails in a timely manner, approach people
- Be an entrepreneur: Realize that it is you who it depends on to run the business, therefore do marketing, be present in public/virtual space, utilize opportunities whenever possible
Especially the last point seems to be highly underrated and can’t be stretched enough. How come people don’t even react when being offered an opportunity to represent themselves? I often come to think that there is quite a bunch of people who are very comfortable with the status of running a label, yet don’t act much. There is a lack of structure in that which in the long run will prove deadly for the vital growth of the scene. Seems some people are so proud to be underground, but in sharp contrast to the picture they have of themselves (symbolized by the inlay of Prodigy’s “Jilted generation” cover), they’re hardly more than losers who found a way to give their unstructured live a meaning instead of a make-over.
If we’re not even able to create a vivd net of people being professional in their devoted spare time, how is anyone from the outside world (print media, big record companies, radio) to take us seriously?! Another opportunity missed.
Technorati Tags: underground, structure, organize, responsible, label, producer, artist, music business
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