After listening and reading about some notable independent labels who have brought us music that we would never have heard about, i got thinking about the opportunities for new 21st Century labels freed from the shackles of physical distribution but who can take from the philosophies and experience of labels who started with virtually nothing and ended up being household names. I think with labels of this kind you need to have a particular genre you are interested in and a style and approach that is uniquely yours but you must have passion for your music.

So who out there in Tipsheet world do we have to watch out for to be the next influential labels. We know you are out there. Also my favourite labels are/were:

Motown (no need to explain)
Ariwa Records (Reggae mostly lovers rock)
Trojan Records (Reggae, Tighten up series)
Solar Records (Funk disco, gave us Shalamar)
Island Records (No need to explain)
4Liberty Records (Garage, man the heydays of garage)

What's yours ?

The thing about building to become a household name is "owning" your audience to a large degree. This could be from incessant gigging, running your own club nights or whatever. So by definition they come from the grassroots level, spot something hot and then leverage it through distribution. We have yet to see how that translates into the online world, even though the distribution is less of a problem these days. But unless I am mistaken, we have yet to see a strong online label emerging.

A boutique label I enjoy a lot is Crammed Discs, who brought us Zuco 103, the first Zap Mama album, Bebel Gilberto and Kocani Orkestar (hardly in the same league as Shalamar - but what an experience).

Some very interesting commentary on things DJKZ. I think Michael is right in that something big has yet to come through online. In my view, they are trying to go public too soon with the result that they get lost in the ether. And the world and his wife is on Myspace...so what?

Better to carefully develop the acts, songs and production. Then come out guns blazing.

I think the very fact that the online label is a relatively new concept has a lot to do with the lack of any notable labels so far.
Now it is totally possible to create the online label today complete with Video sites now proving to be a popular outlet. I think one thing would be important and that is a sort of a family atmosphere or a united front. What i would like to know is how many people who frequent this board are starting labels or thinking of doing so ?

In the past we had Deram and Harvest off-shoots targeted at a type of music.

May be we'll see a major "0nline-only" set-up? They've got to do something

I have no problem owning up to hatching a label. I have two acts under development and one novelty record. There is absolutely no way I'm going public with the material until everything is in place.