Radiohead wouldn’t exist without early major-label funding.

[ConfusionGrows]

This is a tumblr post by Mike Doughty (formerly of Soul Coughing) that I think is worth discussing. Here's the headline:

Radiohead wouldn’t exist without early major-label funding. The future won’t bring new Radioheads. All I want to say here, truly, is: let’s get used to it.

Here's the link.
http://mkdo.co/post/26352263455/radiohead-wouldnt-exist-without-early-major-label

This is the same opinion I've found from a few independent musicians, although in that case they were talking about smaller labels being important. What does everyone else think?

[Rmonik]

That's a big pile of BS, imo. The writer is unable to grasp how recent developements in technology have impacted the way in which fame is established. Also, he is somewhat of an elitist. Not the "underground is better" kind, more like the "the way they did it in the old days was better".

You need to keep up with stuff if you want to make it in music. That's how it is now and how it used to be then. People still listen to music, now more than ever, as it's become accesible to everyone, thanks to global media as the internet, TV, radio. Why would there be less bands? And why would they be less talented? Quite on the contrary i would say, as making music has become accesible to everyone, thus nurrishing talent that would otherwise have gone to waste. Internet has made it easy for everyone to "access" people to share and promote their music, thus opening doors for talent that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. It used to be rich people making decent music, and the labels deciding if they wanted to make them big (i call this the rebecca black phenomenon, but as you see it was done long before her reign of terror).

Next up, touring is not the way to make it big anymore. Not only because there is a lack of labels willing to fund it, jus because it does not work. Every slob has a guitar nowadays, or a computer with FL Studio. If you want to play big venues, you have to be big BEFORE. people don't go to gigs anymore if they don't know the bands. They go to gigs because they are already a fan. Ofcourse then we have some bands than can open before the headliner, but that's usually the headliner choosing a band he likes (and is already famous enough for the headliner to know it)

This seemed more like an old guy going "in my days..." than an actual article to me. I might be missing the point though.

[ReSet]

I think Rmo just hit the nail on the head. These days you don't need funding to be able to make music like you did back in the day, all you need is a bit of talent and drive, which are of course indiscriminate.

I don't really get this writer's point, to be honest. Yes, he may be correct when he says less labels = less touring = less bands, but I don't understand where this is coming from. As far as I can see, there are new bands cropping up all the time. A band that I know from school, Nylon Sky, just got signed to some label or other, and are planning a UK tour. I also fail to see where he gets this idea that there are fewer labels; again, there are labels springing up all over the place, usually owned by artists themselves.I don't see any numbers or actual evidence in this argument, so I'm not convinced.

It all just seems to be speculation. He chooses Radiohead as an example, but my bet is that he hasn't been personally involved with them, and so doesn't actually know the goings on behind the scenes. He doesn't mention that they probably worked their asses off trying to be good musicians in the first place, so that their label would sign them. Their success didn't start off with the label and the money, i'm betting it started with a grind to actually get good.

I'm of the opinion that, if you really want to succeed in music, and you have the talent, you will eventually. If you don't make it, then you either didn't want it enough, or you didn't have the talent. I think that's a harder pill to take than the 'blame everyone else for not spending money' route, but I think it's a bit more truthful. In this day and age, you don't need a label to get noticed. Sure it's nice to have support, but it's not essential, and as Rmo said, touring isn't as essential as it used to be. If you're good enough, you'll get noticed, it really is as simple as that.

On a side note, why would we want new Radiohead's? We already have one...