Category archives: Indie Labels

Matador Records Founder Chis Lombardi In Founding An Indie Label, ‘Signing Music You Love’

In this piece Kenny Gates of [PIAS] speaks with Matador Records founder Chris Lombardi, who originally began the label as a hobby, about the label’s origins, and where he things the modern music industry is headed. ______________________ Guest Post by The Independent Echo on [PIAS] You can’t always derive much…

Sony To Re-Launch Monument Records with Jason Owen, Shane McAnally At Helm

Sony Music announced plans to re-launch their venerable label Monument Records, with veteran label execs Jason Owen and Shane McAnally serving as co-presidents. Rounding out Monument Records’ executive staff is Katie McCartney, who will serve as SVP Marketing & Label Operations, reporting directly to McAnally and Owen. Previously with Lyric…

Billboard Finally Adds Streaming To All Genre Charts

In an overdue move, Billboard is finally using consumption methodology – sales + streams – to compute its many genre charts. The trade’s iconic Top 200 has used the combined methodology for some time. _________________________________ Revamped Billboard genre charts will now follow the Billboard 200 formula: 10 digital track sales…

Bandcamp Reports Strong Growth, Adding 2000 Indie Labels, Hundreds Of Thousands Of Artists In 2016

The recorded music business had a decent year in 2016, but indie powerhouse Bandcamp had an ever better one. And they did it the old fashioned way – selling music and merchandise – rather than by collecting checks from Spotify and Apple Music. _____________________________ Bandcamp’s business grew across all categories…

It’s A Streaming World With Vinyl Only Living In, But It’s Living Much Better These Days [Glenn Peoples]

[UPDATED] Streaming and vinyl are two growth areas helping to return the music industry to profitability. But getting your vinyl pressed hasn’t been easy. “You used to not have to worry about manufacturing,” Matthew Johnson, co-founder of Fat Possum Records told Billboard. _________________________________ Image credit: Will Folsom, Creative Commons Attribution…

Are Cassettes The New Vinyl? Look At These Stats Before You Answer

Vinyl is not the only old school music format making a major comeback. Cassette album sales were up an impressive 74% in 2016. ________________________ 25 albums sold at least 1,000 copies on cassette in 2016, compared to just 8 in 2015, according to Billboard and Nielsen. Overall, cassette album sales…

An Indie Album Tops SoundCloud 2016 Chart

From Chance the Rapper’s indie release "Coloring Book" to some of the buzziest genre tags including #TRAPSOUL and #phonk, SoundCloud continue to be a hub of creativity and often a predictor of future musical trends. _______________________________ These insights were compiled based on indicators and actions you’ve taken on SoundCloud including…

Jamestown Revival, Alejandro Escovedo, Drive-By Truckers Top Americana Music Chart This Week

The Americana Music Association’s Airplay chart represents the reported play of terrestrial radio stations, nationally syndicated radio shows, satellite radio and internet stations who have agreed to submit weekly spin counts. Here is this week’s chart: ____________________ For week of Monday, January 16, 2017 Rank Spins 2W LW TW ARTIST…

INgrooves’ Bryan Mead Named SVP Artist and Label Relations At PledgeMusic

Bryan Mead has been named SVP Artist and Label Relations at PledgeMusic. He will lead the New York headquartered company’s west coast team. ________________________________ Previously, Mead served as INgrooves Music Group’s Senior Vice President, Label Services and Marketing and was a founding member of Universal Music Group’s Fontana Distribution executive…