The Music Industry and the Role of Music Videos

The music industry consists of a variety of companies and individuals who make money through the creation and sale of music. These include people such as the professionals who create and sell the music, such as the publishers, producers, record labels, etc., the professionals who assist musicians, such as talent managers, business managers, etc., those who broadcast music, such as television networks, online services, etc., and more.

In the music industry, a record label is a brand/trademark associated with the marketing of music and music videos, and often record labels also handle many other elements, including production, manufacture, distribution, marketing, promotion and enforcement of copyright for music and music videos. They can also conduct talent scouting and development of new artists, and handle maintaining contracts between their artists and the artists' managers. This shows clearly that record labels can be quite basic as well as massively influencing and integrated into many processes of the music industry, demonstrating their power and capabilities.

Since 1929 there have been a number of major record labels. The differences between major and independent record labels are simply this; record labels may be small, very localised and independent (what we've termed "indie"), while others may be part of a larger international media group (which are the major).

The progression of the major labels can be seen across this time-line below:

In 1988, the major record labels were named the "Big Six", and since then the number of major labels has always been named the "Big .....". The reduction in the number of major labels has been due to a number of reasons:

• Around 1998 - 2004, Universal Music Group acquired Polgram, reducing the "Big Six" to the "Big Five".
• A joint venture between Sony Music and BMG Music, completed in 2004, resulted in Sony BMG, reducing the "Big Five" to the "Big Four".
• Sony BMG became Sony Music Entertainement with BMG's 50% stake being aqcuired by Sony, not affecting the number of major labels, though was that Universal Music Group acquired EMI in 2012, and a consortium in led by Sony/ATV in 2012, led to the acquisition of EMI Music Publishing, making Sony/ATV the world's largest music publisher, and reducing the "Big Four" to the "Big Three".

Music videos offer artists the chance to show off not only their musical talent but their unique qualities to the public, through their music videos, and some artists have become famous thanks to the power that music videos possess. Music has always been able to be played via radio and on radio channels via television, but with music videos more channels are open to the promotion of the artist, such as MTV, ideally allowing for more revenue to be gained from the artists and a greater awareness of their music to be gained. The substance of music videos, i.e. the visuals, can be a very strong method of gaining new fans for artists as the most unique videos entice audiences and videos with touching and relateable visuals stick with the viewer, again allowing a wider fan base and thus more revenue for the record label behind the artist. Therfore, as you can see, the role of music videos within the music industry has and always will be for promotion.