Research Into Record Labels - Miss Georgiou.

The UK plays host to a many hundreds of record labels including the four major record companies and a thriving community of hundreds of independent labels and music companies. The three major record companies are Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music. Each of these labels manage numerous artists from various genres and are considered as the most sucessful within the UK.

Universal Music Group (UMG Recordings, Inc.) (UMG) is the largest music corporation in the world. An American-based, French-owned multinational music corporation, it currently operates as a subsidiary of Paris-based media conglomerate Vivendi. UMG also owns Universal Music Publishing Group, which is the second largest music publishing company in the world. Universal Music Group's global corporate headquarters are located in Santa Monica, California. It manages numerous artists across various genres such as:

• Lady Gaga.
• Gwen Stefani.
• Keri Hilson.
• Young Jeezy.
• Mariah Carey. 

Sony Music Entertainment is another American music corporation owned which is owned byt the parent company of Sony which is based in Japan. It was founded in 1929 under the name American Record Coropertation it was then renamed numerous of times before finally settling on the name Sony Music Entertainment in 1991. It has a extremely varied amount of artists ranging from local artists to international superstars as well as numerous historic artists. Their artists include:

• The Ting Tings.
• The Clash.
• MGMT.
• Ke$ha.

The final record label i have chosen to analyse is Warner Music. Warner Music is the third largest record label and was founded in 1958 as Warner Bros Records under the main company Time Warner. The company operates some of the largest and most successful recording labels in the world, including its flagship labels Warner Bros. Records, Parlophone Records and Atlantic Records. WMG also owns Warner/Chappell Music, one of the world's largest music-publishing companies. They amanage numerous artists such as:

• Death Cab For Cutie.
• Gnarls Barkley.
• Basshunter.
• Fleetwood Mac.
• Enter Shakiri.

Within the music industry there is also numerous independent record labels which operate on a much smaller scale to these major record labels and offer a contrasting service to the larger labels. One of these labels is Boy Better Know who are a label who focus solely on grime music with all its members belonging to this genre. It was formed by three artists who still belong to the label and run it today, JME Skepta and Wiley. 'BBK' operate on a very basic level only taking on artists who are their friends keeping a close-knit group of artists, this leads to numerous collaborations between these artists. These artists include:

• Skepta
• JME
• Wiley
• Frisco
• Jammer

Another example of a independent record label is RAM Records. RAM Records, like Boy Better Know, specialise in one genre which is Drum and Bass and they have becoming one of the largest independent record labels within this genre in the UK. It was founded in 1992 by DJ Andy C who has brought the company huge success winning numerous awards and signing many artists. Specialising in one genre has meant that RAM now understand the genre and the target audience and have knowledge on what artists will be successful within this genre. Some of these Drum and Bass artists are:

• Chase and Status
• Sub Focus
• Audio
• DC Breaks
• Delta Heavy 

FatCat Records is another independent record label but unlike the other two labels this label follows the large conglomerate label system by having many artists which belong to numerous genres such as Post Rock, Electronica and Pop. It was founded in 1997 by Dvid Cowley and Alexander Knight who initially signed many artists who had early success for the record label such as icelandic band Mum. Since then they have followed their early philosophy of signing many artists from many contrasting genres. Some of these contrasting artists include:

• The Twilight Sad
• His Clancyness
• Mazes 
• Max Richter
• Mice Parade 

Having major record labels with large amounts of money and access to vast amounts of resources has a massive effect on the music industry and the independent record labels. The four major record labels have a massive amount of control over the music industry as they are able to dictate the release of music from the major superstars. These records labels are able to get there artists heard by extremely large audiences and make them a overnight success regardless of their talent. This has a rather negative on the industry because artists who work hard and are really talented are restricted to only a small amount of success due to belonging to a independent record label. Artists such as  Justin Bieber have received huge amounts of success mainly because of many reasons other than their singing. Justin Bieber received immediate success following a major record label watching a Youtube video he posted and he was then signed to this label and received huge amounts of success, due to their power within the music industry, without having to work very hard to be in this position. Where as artists such as JME and Skepta who both belong to a independent record label are unable to receive this amount of success although they have worked extremely hard as they run their one record company. The music industry being dominated by these major record labels means that many genres of music are unable to reach large amounts of success and be seen by much large audiences because these record labels usually only distribute pop music as they know that it is the most successful and will generate the most interest and money. This means many other genres such as grime and dub step don't receive the recognition and success they deserve as they are not heard by large audiences. Despite this major record labels do have numerous benefits. One of these is they have made music much more accessible and available to large amounts of people as they have been innovators in ensuring that music is heard by large amounts of people. This means that many people may not be listening to the music they are today is it wasn't for the work of these major record labels. These record labels have also been very beneficial for many artists career as they have helped the careers of numerous artists as we all as progressing the pop genre immensely and making it the success it is today. 

Indpendant record labels have also had a considerable impact on the music industry as they have made it possible for many artists who are not as successful to try and make a career out of music and even possible progressing into being signed by a major record label. Independant record have also had s hugs impact for the many genres which are not considered by the major record labels and have given them a chance to impress more people then previously possible and hopefully making the genre more well known and successful. Independent record labels also give the artists more freedom to be the artist they want to be the artist they wished rather than being dictated by the record label into wearing certain things and acting a certain way to create a product like artist which will sell as much records as possible.