ABSTRACT
What does it take to make a record label that has scene impact and artistic notoriety, and what does it take to keep it running? One thing is for sure; these days there are more and more independent record labels. This is an exciting new feature of'democratized' and 'DIY' music markets, but how can labels have longevity and how can their managers keep them alive and kicking? How can a small scale label survive among hundreds of other such labels and – more generally – in the market dominated by a large-scale music industry controlled by just three corporations? No matter how aesthetically refined or artistically oriented you are, the questions of investment and financial sustainability are always there. No matter how critical of capitalism or idealistically 'artsy' the people behind independent labels might seem, they are typically shrewd and savvy observers of contemporary culture, technological developments, music markets, and music and artistic scenes. At the core of their work as label managers, they must routinely deal with managing economic risks. What is crucial, however, is that independent music scenes follow their own logic of economic operation. Kühn calls this the 'economy of the techno scene', which is predicated on a tight 'ascetic delimitation' of the aesthetic that they offer to the market, and on the existence of a specific "reception context" that supports that aesthetic' (Kühn 2017: 14-17). Before we show what this means for our labels, we need to briefly address what a sceptical reader might immediately pick up on: what makes this unique scene-specific logic possible in the first place, and what about the risk that must surely be there? After all, there's no such thing as a free lunch.
