Norio wrote
I see things changing in the future, though. With the internet playing the massive role it's playing (and still plenty of room to grow!), we'll soon see a LOT more musos making money and doing it by themselves or with the help of sites selling tracks and so on.
With the internet plus a decent PC, you can now:
- Record a decent-sounding CD
- Sell MP3 tracks online
- Market yourself to 100s of 1000s of people across Facebook, MySpace, last.fm and more
- Reach niches of people across continents who, otherwise, would have been too far away to even know about you
Suddenly, even music that's particularly commercially-unviable has a chance of finding a following that can sustain the musos behind the music. We're not there yet but we will be.
I'm not saying it's easy. In fact, I'd say it's blimming hard but the main costs are time and hard work. So provided your music has a market that can sustain you and you're prepared to LEARN a lot, you can make it and do it entirely without a label.
I hear you there but don't agree wholeheartedly.
Modern technology is making it easier for just about anyone and everyone with a little PC savvy to make music, even without any knowledge of an instrument and/or music theory. Granted there are those that have done that in the past on the odd occasion, but now it's the playground of kiddies and popstars...
Imagine a world full of Milley Cyrus' and Tatu's... each one trying to punt their 'own' music. Painful...
Then there's the question of bootleg samples and copyrights... ala Hip Hop artists of today. My best being the hardcore rapper who sampled a piece from a well documented homosexual french duo... bet his homies love that.
in short it makes it more painful as you have to sift through all the crap before finding the diamond... or even the dull gem.
