Check out this link to a superb article with the following indie rock label luminaries:
Maggie Vail and Portia Sabin from Kill Rock Stars
Gerard Cosloy from Matador
Mac McCaughan from Merge
Robb Nansel from Saddle Creek
Chris Swanson and Darius Van Arman from Jagjaguwar/Secretly Canadian/Dead Oceans
That's Mac from Merge (my favorite label), plus representatives from Jagjaguwar (my second favorite I think, if I were ranking) and Matador and Kill Rock Stars and Saddle Creek. That's freakin' awesome. The article is an interview with the label leaders by an NPR reporter.
And here's some of the great quotes:
Portia Sabin: Dudes, we are in the era of "I like everything," which translates to whatever is on the radio/on the iPod, which has always been the majority of music fans, in my opinion.
(I totally agree, not sure if it's just because I'm a music snob, but I don't understand someone who says they like "everything" in music. Personally, I hate "everything," or most things, or most everything mainstream, and that's because I love music so much, I think. Or maybe I'm just a snob).
Portia Sabin: There were 105,000 records released in the U.S. last year, and of those, 1,515 sold more than 10,000 copies.
Carrie Brownstein: That's an amazing statistic.
Gerard Cosloy: We see some wild variations in digital percentages from artist to artist.
Darius Van Arman: For us, Dinosaur Jr., being a legacy
band, is one of those that is still mostly CD (60 percent range).
Compared to Sunset Rubdown, with a younger fan base, which is more like
60 percent digital. And both records had the same release date.
(Heh. Sunset Rubdown has a young fan base, which I certainly notice at the concerts, but I grew up loving Dinosaur Jr. So I'm in both fan bases I guess, woo hoo!)
Carrie Brownstein: Aside from putting out good music, what's the single most effective thing a label can do to get people to buy their music?
Gerard Cosloy: Not sure what the single most efficient
thing would be (other than, you know, the Pitchfork 9.1), but getting
people excited is never easy to quantify or predict.
Carrie Brownstein: Does a Pitchfork 9.1 help?
Maggie Vail : Absolutely.
Gerard Cosloy: Sadly, yes. A Pitchfork 9.1 is more influential to the audience and the retailers than a Rolling Stone or New York Times review.
Carrie Brownstein: What does a Pitchfork 4.5 do?
Portia Sabin: A 4.5 can kill a record. Unfortunately.
Mac McCaughan: Agree on the Pitchfork thing, though I do think that a 9.1 helps more than an average number hurts.
Robb Nansel: I'd be inclined to say a high Pitchfork number helps; a low Pitchfork number is irrelevant.
Gerard Cosloy: There remain great things that aren't even on the Pitchfork radar.
Mac McCaughan: Impossible!
And there's more and more good stuff. Take a read, and enjoy.
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