The Freedom of Being An Indie
Why So Many Are Proudly Going and Staying Indies
This article covers the current trend of so many of the major acts suddenly going indie. This briefly explains both the pros and cons of being an indie artist today.
It’s not easy going it alone, is it? You as an independent musician have to fight your "good fight" day in and day out for yourself. You have to handle elements of accounting, merchandising, oversee/handle legal stuff, create marketing plans and promote. Oh, and this is on top of usually a day job and writing lyrics, practices, playing gigs and recording too. However, many of the big league players are now going "minor" again, not because they’ve lost their record deals, but rather because of the freedom being an indie musician gives to them.
One such band is the Bare Naked Ladies. They have been touring relentlessly as indies for some time now. They don’t sell as many CDs or get as much play video or radio-wise, but the money they make now is an even greater percentage than before when they were with a label. Now without a label they get the lump sum of the profits instead of the measly 15-20% (at most) that most major signed artists are receiving. For them the freedom of going into the studios and not having the pressure of the labels forcing them to create pop tracks and forcing them into any unreasonable engagements are more than enough reason to go it alone.
This is a new trend happening in the music industry. Many more artists are expected to take over the reins of their careers and become indies again in order to escape the sometimes manipulative realms of labels, contracts, royalties/percentages of profits. They want what you have...Freedom! You have the right to wear your hair as you’d like, create and promote the music videos you like, choose which songs make the album, and even how to promote them. Though this is a huge task even with the proper resources, the freedom that being an indie gives the artistic soul a grand amount of release.
Are you taking control of your career properly? Are you utilizing the freedom you currently have as an indie artist? Is it even necessary for you to pursue a major label contract anymore? These are all things that musicians of all kinds are being forced to evaluate right now. You have something that many major artist are lusting for though, and it is important that you are using it to the best of your abilities at all times. Don’t waste too much time agonizing over getting the major deals, act out your freedom of being an indie today and hopefully as you do that you should attract the major labels in the future...Assuming you’re even interested in going that route when they approach you. Embrace the freedom.
