Music

NAUGHTY LIST 2011: The continued self-destruction of major labels

by Sam Sutherland

In our annual festive Naughty and Nice feature, AUX compiles the best and worst of the year in music.

This is a band that some suits thought you would really love in 2011

In the late ’80s and ’90s, there was this trend. When the biggest band on an independent label had a chance to jump ship for the majors, they tended to do it. Nirvana left Sub Pop. Green Day left Lookout!, and Jawbox left Dischord. With a major label, these bands had the chance to delve deep into their craft and use the deep pockets of their corporate overlords to produce some of the best albums of their era. Independent labels, a creation of the hardcore explosion of the early ’80s, had yet to develop into the kind of businesses that could support the recording budget for Nevermind.

It’s a well-worn narrative, so in short — the internet and, specifically, peer-to-peer file sharing, shattered the concept of power that once drove major record labels. The labels bungled the whole thing, and have been paying for their mistakes since. The shocking part is that, in 2011, they’re still acting pretty stupid.

There is a reason why Grammy-winning, Billboard number one-ing Arcade Fire have stayed put with their indie home, Merge. Simply put, there is nothing that a major label could offer that the Superchunk homestead can’t. That former Interscope executive Steve Stoute, a man responsible for such gems as Limp Bizkit and U2’s awful ’90s output, penned a full-page open letter denouncing the band and the Grammys as “out of touch,” was as hilarious as it was heartbreakingly stupid. Thanks for Pop, dude. “Discothèque” was a real underrated jam.

That tumblr-rap upstarts Odd Future signed to a major label this year isn’t that surprising — there’s something very Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle-ish about getting a label like Sony to create a subsidiary, Odd Future Records, to give the band full creative and financial control over their work. It was a smart move on Sony’s part, but served to highlight their recognition that, as one of the biggest musical forces in the world, they had no idea how to work with Odd Future, themselves harbingers of a new digital music era, beyond just throwing some money at them and aligning themselves with the year’s biggest breakout almost-stars.

In 2011, major labels continued to lean on reality TV as a new method of marketing the same tired musical garbagecans. Shows that award the world’s worst recording contract to winners were pumped out at a furious rate — in Canada, the Much-propped-up disBand foisted These Kids Wear Crowns on an unwilling nation, with utter failures of full-length records by past winners Stereos and Abandon All Ships released at the end of 2010 and unsuccessfully marketed throughout the year — in 2009, the former’s first record peaked at number three in Canada and was certified Gold. In 2011, their latest peaked at 95. Cover Me Canada, the CBC-backed show featuring covers of iconic Canadian tunes, awarded a contract to a band based on playing someone’s else’s song. And the contest that introduced us to bushy dull-rockers the Sheepdogs, an online competition for the once-meaningful cover of Rolling Stone, was born of the same tired mindset. It’s one that creates a momentary audience, a Twitter-era blink of cultural nothingness that is guaranteed to make a few bucks for the brains bankrolling these competitions before a listless crowd moves on to the next instant star.

It doesn’t help that, in an era when artist access is seen by many fans as more of a right than a privilege, most majors still make landing an interview with one of their prize chickens more difficult than qualifying for the Olympics. When it takes five different publicists and an accountant eighteen e-mails to schedule an interview that gets cancelled anyway, it’s easy to see why some magazines and blogs would rather talk about Wye Oak than State of Shock.

Admittedly, this issue is far from cut and dry. These same labels were also responsible for releasing some of the best albums of the year, from Drake’s ambitious Take Care to TV on the Radio’s Nine Types of Light. The well is far from dry, but it’s kind of smoking weirdly, and if I were the well owner, I’d be pretty worried.

Return to the Naughty and Nice master list.