Indies

Interesting post over at Coolfer about what exactly "indie" means in music 2.0. Once you get past the definitional stuff, there's a couple of interesting paragraphs about the necessary intermediaries for success (which is another contested term, but that's a whole different post, or paper).

Artists can succeed without a major label, but a decent career is going to be hard to achieve without the other traditional components: manager, lawyer, booking agent, publisher, web designer and maybe indie label. As you can see, an indie artist is independent only of a major label contract, not of agents, consultants, representation or standard expenses that take up their share of the artist's income.

I get the impression that people think any ol' Tom, Dick or Harry can call up the music supervisor of "Grey's Anatomy" and get a song into an episode, or that those handful of career-changing music supervisors are always serendipitously stumbling across complete unknowns and placing songs in their series. But even though one facet of a career may have changed -- the type of record label -- the name of the game is still relationships and getting your phone calls returned. Major labels have relationships with the most brick-and-mortar retailers. They cornered the market and are a requisite for wide distribution. Music distribution has changed, obviously, but there are still plenty of gatekeepers to get through.