Wednesday Records Readies Itself to Take On the Musical
World
by Brett Leigh Dicks
way to make a small fortune in independent music is to start off
with a large one. But in a day and age when music is freely
reaching the ears of more people than ever before and downloading
decreases the need to purchase CDs, the emergence of a record label
is becoming a rare event. Web sites like iTunes.com offer an
overwhelming catalogue of recorded material that require only a
computer, a server, and a click of the mouse, allowing people’s
musical obsessions to be satisfied at home.
And it isn’t just distribution that has been revolutionized. The
MySpace.com phenomenon has seen the evolution of a service where
artists can take their wares directly to the people. In bypassing
the traditional approaches to marketing and promotion, fans can go
directly to the source. And, as a result, niche markets are
self-assembling. All this musical streamlining raises an obvious
question: Why would anyone dive headlong into starting an
independent label at this point in time?