record labels

At the beginning of producing our music video we had to consider potential record labels that we would like our artist to be signed up to in the future.  I have found possible record labels that could sign up the artist we have chosen to work for. some major record labels that i have researched include flava records, London record, Island records and polydor. 

I decided to choose Island/def jam records as I believe it will be the most established record label that could help market our artist around the world. Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group. The label now operates as a division of The Island Def Jam Music Group in the United States (where it is now a largely rock-oriented label) and as a standalone label in the United Kingdom (also known as Island Records Group or Universal Island).^[1] Since 2007, there is also a frontline local artist and repertoire label in Australia known as Island Records Australia, run by Universal Music Australia. Def Jam Recordings is an American hip-hop record label, owned by Universal Music Group, and operates as a part of The Island Def Jam Music Group. In the UK, the label takes on the name Def Jam UK and is operated through Mercury Music Group, while in Japan, it is Def Jam Japan operating through Universal Sigma Music.

  The Island Def Jam Music Group is a record label group formed in 1999 when Universal Music Group merged two of its daughter companies, Island Records and Def Jam Recordings, to create a label group.

Universal music is the largest of the ‘big four’ record group’s. With global operations. They have distribution in many countries such as Germany, Australia and Japan, with headquarters in New York. This means that they have the most power and finance to distribute an artist album worldwide, and in turn our artist can benefit from this as they become more well established around the world. The use of globalisation has allowed many artists to become very successful when signed on to the right record label, and as USA dominate the album sales and market value with 35%. It is best that our artist signs onto a record label in London who has connections with the USA to become more worldwide and successful. A recent artist who is from London but found it easier to make in the music industry in London and she moved to the US. She is now signed to def jam records. N-dubz are  also UK artist who are signed to the label, and have managed to make it far and are now performing in places such as the Glastonbury festival.

 Def jam records also have a label company in the UK, and our artist crucial can sign up to them to help him be established in the Uk and he can then move to the US, to gain help in to promoting and distribution he’s album, and because universal music group are owned by universal and they are vertically integrated it makes it easier for the record labels to, produce, distribute and exhibit their artist products.

Universal music group also own universal music TV who have extensive TV advertising rights, and our artist can produce music videos which can then be shown on to sky channels such as MTV, who show music from our artist genre and our aimed at our target audience.

Universal are also part of the major film industry and our artist could be used as celebrity endorsement in movies to gain more promotion and recognition. The sue of cross media promotion within many parent companies allows for my artist to be advertise in several different media formats and this in turn allows them to grow and reach a wide variety of audience with he’s songs and music video, and that is what we hope to do by producing him a music video.

We can also post our produced music video of crucial on YouTube as major record labels such as UMG scout for unsigned talent on YouTube. A benefit to the artist of posting their video online is that YouTube has over 60million people who use their site to watch videos on it every day, and the use of technological convergence has allowed consumers to decide how they want to consume a product at any time.  Most of our target audience use the internet nowadays to search for music; also the internet comes on many other gadgets such as mobile phones and IPods.  It allows consumers to access the song or music video in any way. Universal music group co-developed Vevo, a site designed for music videos inspired by Hulu.com, which similarly, will allow for free, ad-supported streaming of music videos and other music content. This means we can upload our music video on YouTube which is supported by Vevo and it allows consumers all around to world to view the video in high 
quality. This will help our artist to be a worldwide successful artist.