“I think it’s a particularly bad thing when it comes to a creative business. “Concentration is always a danger that’s why there are competition authorities,” says Martin Mills, head of independent label Beggars Group, which includes Matador Records, Rough Trade, and other indies. Today, Universal Music Group, the largest of the big three, is so big that many of its labels-Capitol Records, Interscope, Def Jam, Republic- have their own subsidiaries. The three major labels still distribute more than 80 percent of all physical music today, dominance that has proven disastrous Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images Antitrust agencies cleared both mergers unconditionally. Consumer and industry groups pushed officials to block both deals, particularly because of the power the combined labels would have over music copyrights and the distribution of physical albums. Then, in 2003, Sony bought rival BMG, and, nearly a decade later, Universal music took over EMI. By the turn of the millennium, just five labels dominated recorded music.
Starting in the mid-1960s, many combined into a few much-larger labels that controlled major artists and their recordings. There were just labels, numerous and diverse. From the industry’s emergence through the 1940s and 1950s, there were no major labels. He later clarified in an interview: If you’re independent, you’re “not looking to reduce competition by acquiring rivals” or for other unfair advantages that tilt the industry toward corporate dominance. He didn’t specifically mention the three major labels-Universal, Sony, and Warner Music-but his logic would suggest that there was something inherently anticompetitive about them.
#MUSIC MADE ELSEWHERE DRIVER#
But even after it’s again safe to see a live gig, the underlying driver of the music industry’s deep inequity will persist.įor decades, corporate concentration and the rise of streaming music platforms has shifted power to tech giants, and to a conglomerate that, through the staggering failures of US monopoly regulation, has come to dominate terrestrial and satellite radio, concert promotion, ticketing, artist management, and venue ownership, essentially every revenue-generating slice of the industry. The Save Our Stages bill, passed in December as part of the second round of pandemic relief, has offered a lifeline. Musicians lost two-thirds of their typical income in 2020. This is particularly true for independent artists with few other means of making a living in today’s industry.
By taking away live music for what will likely be 18 months or more, Covid has ended the revenue stream that animated an entire music ecosystem. The Covid-19 pandemic has shattered the music industry.
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