There’s no such thing as unsigned anymore. Musicians can now make a good living from music without signing over their souls to a record label, whether independent or – shudder – a major.

Record labels nowadays expect a band to have built up a sizeable fan base from gigging, working the social networks (Myspace, Bebo, etc) and doing their own promotion. If a band can prove to a label that they’ve got an established following ready to buy a record, the label will then consider taking them on. These days little or no advance is offered, and most bands are expected to come with album-ready material – essentially all the label will then need to do is master the recording to make it release-quality, and then put it out. What you’re signing up for is basically the cachet of the label name attached to your recording. Everything else you essentially do yourself.

So why bother? Why not cut out the label completely? All that record companies can offer an up-and-coming band is a promotional machine to get tracks to press, radio and TV. But that situation will hopefully change in the coming years, as the music press gets more attuned to writing about bands regardless of whether they’re signed, and traditional pop radio is overtaken by web radio and online music sites like Last.fm.

FakeSensations – Sylvie Says

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