Record Companies/Styles of Music

                                Record Companies and Organic and Synthetic Music


MAJOR RECORD LABELS:

The music industry is dominated mostly by four multinational companies. These companies are;

- Universal



-Sony Music



-Warner Brothers



- EMI




These companies are mostly referred to as 'The Majors' and the majority of them are backed by conglomerates with stakes in other industries such as film, TV, and the electronics.

MAJOR INDEPENDENTS:

Most of these majors own or maybe license a series of smaller companies in order to reach different kinds of audiences in different genres of music and film.

-Columbia



-Island



-Syco



-RCA



-Virgin




All these companies are know as the major independents.


INDEPENDENTS:

There are a huge number of small companies with little or even no financial connection to the bugger majors. These companies often concentrate on small amount of acts within specialised places in the industry and these are called independents. An example of an independent company is Domino Records. It is quite often that record labels begin as independent record labels, but then they are bought by a major company which then means they become major independents.

ORGANIC AND SYNTHETIC MUSIC:

Artists can be divided between two categories which is organic music and synthetic music.

The term 'organic' is used in order to describe  bands where the music comes first. They make the music they want to make and then their record labels try to sell the music to the right market and audience. Organic music can often appeal to be a niche but can also appeal to a large audience too.
The Beatles and the band Radiohead are good examples of organic bands. The members in each of these bands came to know each other and they shared the love of music, then they created music in which the fame came afterwards.

Synthetic refers to manufactured groups (X Factor methodology) and it's the record labels that are mainly in charge. If a gap in the market is identified then it is usually exploited by the development of music and sometimes the artist, fill this gap. Money is the usual goal in this operation and bands such as One Direction and/or The Spice Girls are good examples of manufactured artists.