129-403: Crass Records was an independent record label that was set up by the anarchist punk band Crass . Prior to the formation of Crass, Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher had published their creative works via their own Dial House based Exitstencil Press . However the band set up the record label after encountering problems over the release of their first 12" EP, The Feeding of the 5000 , on
258-621: A "special relationship to time defined as 'swing ' ". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz
387-681: A couple of appearances from Kylie Minogue and a few releases on XL Recordings, the Official Independent Singles Chart Top 50 would be alien to anyone who remembered the indie chart from 1990. It is now more likely for grime, dance and K-Pop artists to be in the Top 10 than indie bands, with the chart of 20 November to 26 November 2020, having KSI and Craig David at number one with their BMG released single "Really Love", BTS at number two with "Dynamite" and AJ Tracey at number three with "West Ten". Apart from re-issues and oldies by people like
516-467: A drum made by stretching skin over a flour-barrel. Lavish festivals with African-based dances to drums were organized on Sundays at Place Congo, or Congo Square, in New Orleans until 1843. There are historical accounts of other music and dance gatherings elsewhere in the southern United States. Robert Palmer said of percussive slave music: Usually such music was associated with annual festivals, when
645-521: A few years later decided to launch a 'new Virgin Records'. This 'Virgin2' was set up as V2 Music in 1996 with staff from Branson's company working on V2 at the same time as the V96 Festival (both record company and festival would use similar 'V' branding, as Branson could not use the full Virgin name for any projects involving music). This British independent label would be joined by other V2 Records around
774-456: A form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations. These work songs were commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was also improvisational. Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score , with less attention given to interpretation, ornamentation, and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal
903-433: A huge number of records (usually promoted by a 'front' of models-turned-singers and various rappers) and, in the 1990s, a UK arm which would eventually turn into hard house label Nukleuz , known for its DJ Nation releases. The dance music scene also proved beneficial to independent labels who compiled and marketed TV-advertised compilations, especially when Virgin teamed up with EMI to launch Now That's What I Call Music ,
1032-410: A limited melodic range, sounding like a field holler, and the guitar accompaniment was slapped rather than strummed, like a small drum which responded in syncopated accents, functioning as another "voice". Handy and his band members were formally trained African-American musicians who had not grown up with the blues, yet he was able to adapt the blues to a larger band instrument format and arrange them in
1161-407: A lot of its catalogue in order to please various anti-monopoly and merger commissions or trade bodies, after buying the large part of EMI ( Parlophone ) that UMG was not allowed to keep hold of after acquiring the remainder. In 2016, Radiohead 's back catalogue was sold to Beggars (XL Recordings) , Chrysalis Records was sold to Blue Raincoat Music (now including recordings by Everything but
1290-529: A massive $ 3.4 million record deal, all which ended when Mimran's father, Jean Claude, cut finances. In the end Bowie's Savage album, Black Tie White Noise only just made the US Top 40 albums chart (but was a number one in the UK for Savage's distributor BMG via their Arista label) with Savage Records being a record label whose 'story' Telstar and Sanctuary would follow to a lesser extent. One independent record label who
1419-460: A multi- strain ragtime march with four parts that feature recurring themes and a bass line with copious seventh chords . Its structure was the basis for many other rags, and the syncopations in the right hand, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time. The last four measures of Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) are shown below. African-based rhythmic patterns such as tresillo and its variants,
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#17330926786351548-664: A negative way, WEA set up Korova in 1979 for Zoo Record's Echo & the Bunnymen , with Zoo Records being the Liverpool-based label of Bill Drummond and David Balfe). The term " alternative " was increasingly used to describe artists, and "indie'" was more often used to describe a broad range of guitar-based rock and pop. The "explosion" of the dance music scene in the mid- to late 1980s found labels such as Warp , Coldcut's Ahead of Our Time and Wax On Records set up. In Italy production teams like Groove Groove Melody and
1677-567: A nightclub in South London, before it became a record company). Originally AATW would focus on singles and would issue a compilation album once in a while as a tie-in with a local EMAP-owned radio station such as 97.4 Rock FM in Preston, Lancashire (Rock The Dancefloor - All Mixed Up), while the Ministry of Sound moved into compilations quite quickly with the release of their Sessions series . Over
1806-407: A number one hit that would see CBS and WEA (the future Sony BMG and WMG) move into the market with their rival Hits compilations and Chrysalis and MCA team up for the short lived Out Now! brand. Morgan Khan's StreetSounds/StreetWaves was the first independent company to run up a number of hits in the UK album chart with a run of various artist dance music collections and started off business in
1935-509: A pitch which he called a 'jazz ball' "because it wobbles and you simply can't do anything with it". The use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune . Its first documented use in a musical context in New Orleans was in a November 14, 1916, Times-Picayune article about "jas bands". In an interview with National Public Radio , musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of
2064-652: A popular music form. Handy wrote about his adopting of the blues: The primitive southern Negro, as he sang, was sure to bear down on the third and seventh tone of the scale, slurring between major and minor. Whether in the cotton field of the Delta or on the Levee up St. Louis way, it was always the same. Till then, however, I had never heard this slur used by a more sophisticated Negro, or by any white man. I tried to convey this effect ... by introducing flat thirds and sevenths (now called blue notes) into my song, although its prevailing key
2193-501: A similar marketplace to their compilations partner, the original BMG company. In the 2010s, due to platforms such as Bandcamp and SoundCloud, a number of the larger indies moved away from signing unknown acts instead acquiring back catalogues and working with 'heritage acts' (for example, those popular in a pre-digital age). New independent BMG , which had been spun-out of the Sony BMG joint venture that included Arista and RCA, ended up with
2322-512: A small but loyal audience. They relied less on mass sales and were able to provide artists much more opportunity for experimentation and artistic freedom . In the late 1940s and into the 1950s, the American music business changed as people began to more quickly learn the industry. Several companies set up their own recording studios , and the number of label owners began to increase. Many of these owners realized that whichever label first publishes
2451-410: A small inheritance that had been left to one of the band, the piece was shortly afterwards re-recorded and released as a 7" single using its full title, "Reality Asylum". A later repress of The Feeding of the 5000 on Crass Records restored the missing track. As well as releasing their own material, Crass were able to use Crass Records to make available recordings by other performers, the first of which
2580-502: A song is legally entitled to receive compensation for every record sold. Jazz musicians pioneered a new subset of independent labels, companies operated by the artists themselves. Following the original pioneers of the music industry, many new labels were launched over the following decades by people with industry experience. From the 1940s to 1950s, R&B indie labels such as Savoy, Apollo, King, Modern, Mercury, Imperial, Specialty, Red Robin, Duke and Vee-Jay Records were founded. During
2709-457: A specific genre , and the chart featured a diverse range of music, from punk to reggae , MOR , and mainstream pop , including many songs in the late 1980s by artists like Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan on the PWL label. Even though PWL 's releases were mainly Hi-NRG -influenced disco-pop the label was independently distributed and did have a music fan ( Pete Waterman ) at its helm, of which
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#17330926786352838-501: A valuable marketing tool (especially when targeting readers of the NME, Select and various student publications) and so the Britpop-era gave rise to the idea of the 'fake indie'. The 'fake indie' would be a record label owned by a major company but whose distribution did not go through the parent company's distribution arm, going through an independent in order for those records to be eligible for
2967-621: Is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels ; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise , or SME. The labels and artists are often represented by trade associations in their country or region, which in turn are represented by the international trade body, the Worldwide Independent Network ( WIN ). Many of the labels started as producers and distributors of specific genres of music, such as jazz music , or represent something new and non-mainstream, such as Elvis Presley in
3096-403: Is a challenge to this orthodoxy: George McKay's argument in the article 'Was punk DIY? Is DIY punk?' that, because it relied on existing commercial record manufacturing companies, [n]o punk band ever made its own singles . Further, only recently has the early 1970s pub rock scene has been re-evaluated by cultural historians and in rock documentaries such as Sky Arts' Trailblazers series, with
3225-454: Is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". Duke Ellington , one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues ,
3354-663: Is a fundamental rhythmic figure heard in many different slave musics of the Caribbean, as well as the Afro-Caribbean folk dances performed in New Orleans Congo Square and Gottschalk's compositions (for example "Souvenirs From Havana" (1859)). Tresillo (shown below) is the most basic and most prevalent duple-pulse rhythmic cell in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the music of the African Diaspora . Tresillo
3483-489: Is a label that owns its distribution channel . Some independent labels, particularly those with successful artists, sign dual-release, or distribution only agreements with major labels. They may also rely on international licensing deals and other arrangements with major labels. Major labels sometimes fully or partially acquire independent labels. Other nominally independent labels are started and sometimes run by artists on major labels but are still fully or partially owned by
3612-548: Is a reminder of "an oppressive and racist society and restrictions on their artistic visions". Amiri Baraka argues that there is a "white jazz" genre that expresses whiteness . White jazz musicians appeared in the Midwest and in other areas throughout the U.S. Papa Jack Laine , who ran the Reliance band in New Orleans in the 1910s, was called "the father of white jazz". The Original Dixieland Jazz Band , whose members were white, were
3741-486: Is heard prominently in New Orleans second line music and in other forms of popular music from that city from the turn of the 20th century to present. "By and large the simpler African rhythmic patterns survived in jazz ... because they could be adapted more readily to European rhythmic conceptions," jazz historian Gunther Schuller observed. "Some survived, others were discarded as the Europeanization progressed." In
3870-437: Is to play the composition as it was written. In contrast, jazz is often characterized by the product of interaction and collaboration, placing less value on the contribution of the composer, if there is one, and more on the performer. The jazz performer interprets a tune in individual ways, never playing the same composition twice. Depending on the performer's mood, experience, and interaction with band members or audience members,
3999-561: The 13th Floor Elevators and began distributing releases from local rock bands. In the United Kingdom during the 1950s and 1960s, the major labels EMI , Philips , and Decca had so much power that smaller labels struggled to establish themselves. Several British producers launched independent labels, including Joe Meek ( Triumph Records ), Andrew Loog Oldham ( Immediate Records ), and Larry Page ( Page One Records ). Chrysalis Records , launched by Chris Wright and Terry Ellis ,
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4128-620: The Atlantic slave trade had brought nearly 400,000 Africans to North America. The slaves came largely from West Africa and the greater Congo River basin and brought strong musical traditions with them. The African traditions primarily use a single-line melody and call-and-response pattern, and the rhythms have a counter-metric structure and reflect African speech patterns. An 1885 account says that they were making strange music (Creole) on an equally strange variety of 'instruments'—washboards, washtubs, jugs, boxes beaten with sticks or bones and
4257-500: The DIY punk ethic . The catalogue numbers of Crass Records releases were intended to represent a countdown to the year 1984 (e.g., 521984 meaning "five years until 1984"), both the year that Crass stated that they would split up, and a date charged with significance in the anti-authoritarian calendar due to George Orwell 's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . Although these vinyl records are now no longer pressed and their art out of print, many of
4386-612: The Dixieland jazz revival of the 1940s, Black musicians rejected it as being shallow nostalgia entertainment for white audiences. On the other hand, traditional jazz enthusiasts have dismissed bebop, free jazz, and jazz fusion as forms of debasement and betrayal. An alternative view is that jazz can absorb and transform diverse musical styles. By avoiding the creation of norms, jazz allows avant-garde styles to emerge. For some African Americans, jazz has drawn attention to African-American contributions to culture and history. For others, jazz
4515-581: The Official Charts Company when he released Weltschmerz on 25 September 2020, an album self-funded, marketed and distributed from his home in Scotland. As he did not partner with a record label like BMG, he missed out on a top ten album chart placing when early sales revealed that he would have been number 2 on the UK midweek charts behind that week's chart topper, the Partisan-signed band IDLES. On
4644-763: The Poison Girls , a like-minded band who worked closely with Crass for several years. Many of these groups, in turn, went on to set up their own independent record labels loosely following the Crass Records model. Singles released on the Crass Records label had a distinctive ' corporate identity '. As well as lyrically addressing political themes from a broadly anarchist perspective, they were always low priced and usually produced by Crass drummer Penny Rimbaud and engineered by John Loder at Southern Studios in north London . They also featured sleeves designed by Gee Vaucher , often in conjunction with other artists, wherein
4773-478: The Recording Industry Association of America , indie labels produce and distribute about 66% of music titles, but only account for 20% of sales. Many musical artists begin their careers on independent labels, hoping to further grow their career into signing with a record label . The distinction between major and independent labels is not always clear. The traditional definition of a major label
4902-575: The Small Wonder label in 1978. Workers at the Irish pressing plant contracted to manufacture the disc refused to handle it due to the allegedly blasphemous content of one song, "Asylum". The record was eventually released with this track removed and replaced by two minutes of silence, wryly retitled "The Sound Of Free Speech". However, this incident prompted Crass to set up their own record label to control all aspects of their future productions. Using money from
5031-414: The jazz label Babel Label and AK Press . Corpus Christi Records was a 'spin-off' from Crass Records, that enabled artists and performers to put out material supported by Crass through John Loder 's Southern Studios , whilst not necessarily being tied to the latter label's 'corporate image' or anarchist ideology. Independent record label An independent record label (or indie label )
5160-541: The peak body for the independent music industry is the Australian Independent Record Labels Association , known as AIR, representing about 350 members as of 2019 . A 2017 report commissioned by AIR, titled AIR Share: Australian Independent Music Market Report , was the first market analysis of the industry in Australia. It showed that indie labels represented 30% of revenue generated by
5289-502: The post-war period in the United States . Disputes with major labels led to a proliferation of smaller labels specializing in country , jazz , and blues . Sun Records played an important part in the development of rock 'n' roll and country music, working with artists such as Elvis Presley , Carl Perkins , Johnny Cash , Jerry Lee Lewis , Roy Orbison , and Charlie Rich . These independent labels usually aimed their releases at
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5418-451: The 1950s, many women jazz instrumentalists were prominent, some sustaining long careers. Some of the most distinctive improvisers, composers, and bandleaders in jazz have been women. Trombonist Melba Liston is acknowledged as the first female horn player to work in major bands and to make a real impact on jazz, not only as a musician but also as a respected composer and arranger, particularly through her collaborations with Randy Weston from
5547-452: The 1960s, rock label Elektra, R&B labels such as Motown, Stax records released singles and albums. A noted success was that of comedy artist Tom Lehrer , who sold more than 350,000 copies of his 4 albums on his own label, Lehrer Records, by the mid-1960s before moving publishing to Warner Bros. Amidst the advent of the psychedelic revolution independent record labels such as International Artists geared their attention towards bands like
5676-513: The 1980s. Early independents of the 1970s included labels such as MAM Records , set up by the Gordon Mills' Management Agency & Music company. However MAM, like many of the small independents in the United Kingdom ended up signing a distribution deal with a major to remain viable, with MAM's records being licensed and distributed by Decca until it was sold to Chrysalis. For many years,
5805-658: The 1990s would see the founding of two independent companies who would go on to chart numerous dance music collections in the new compilations album chart, Blackburn-based All Around the World (AATW) and the Ministry of Sound . Both All Around the World/AATW and the Ministry of Sound would be founded in 1991, the former by Cris Nuttall and Matt Cadman, the latter by James Palumbo , Humphrey Waterhouse and Justin Berkmann (though initially as
5934-468: The 21st century, such as Latin and Afro-Cuban jazz . The origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm , a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning ' pep, energy ' . The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described
6063-579: The Australian recorded music market, and that 57% of independent sector revenue was from Australian artists, which put the Australian sector in the Top 10 global list of mainly English-speaking indie music markets, according to then CEO of WIN (Worldwide Independent Network), Alison Wenham. (By comparison, the US indie market had a 34% share while the UK had 23%.) The report valued the Australian recording industry as worth A$ 399.4 million , sixth largest music market in
6192-613: The Black middle-class. Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre, which originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from their spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts and chants and rhymed simple narrative ballads . The African use of pentatonic scales contributed to
6321-460: The Caribbean. African-based rhythmic patterns were retained in the United States in large part through "body rhythms" such as stomping, clapping, and patting juba dancing . In the opinion of jazz historian Ernest Borneman , what preceded New Orleans jazz before 1890 was "Afro-Latin music", similar to what was played in the Caribbean at the time. A three-stroke pattern known in Cuban music as tresillo
6450-547: The Disco Mix Club (DMC) for their Hit Mix series. Coming before the Acid House-era the first Hit Mix album in 1986 still had a large amount of pop hits from mainstream chart stars like Kajagoogoo, Kate Bush and Nik Kershaw, but Paul Dakeyne & Les 'L.A. Mix' Adams mixed 86 tracks onto four-sides of vinyl, while follow-up releases would start to feature more house tracks by people like Krush and Nitro De Luxe. The start of
6579-597: The FPI Project would make and release Italo dance/piano house records under many pseudonyms and license them individually to various record labels around the world (such as Beggars' Citybeat label). Instead of going down this one-by-one deal route, Cappella 's Gianfranco Bortolotti set up Media Records in Brescia, northern Italy to release his 'commercial European dance music', a set-up which included fifteen studios featuring various production teams working almost non-stop on
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#17330926786356708-515: The Girl , Athlete and Cockney Rebel ), while the rights to albums by Guster and Airbourne went to Nettwerk . In 2017, WMG went on to sell the catalogues of a number of other artists to independent record companies, including Domino ( Hot Chip and Buzzcocks ), Cherry Red ( Howard Jones , Dinosaur Jr. and Kim Wilde ), Fire ( The Lemonheads and The Groundhogs ) and Because Music ( The Beta Band and various French acts). Apart from
6837-537: The Official Independent Albums Chart Top 10 for 8 October, IDLES would be number one with Ultra Mono with acts from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s taking up a further seven slots (including compilations from acts like Slade and new albums from people like Hüsker Dü 's Bob Mould ). According to Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun , K-pop company Big Hit Entertainment had revenues of 484 billion South Korea won ($ 436 million US dollars) for
6966-658: The Starlight Roof at the famed Waldorf-Astoria Hotel . He entertained audiences with a light elegant musical style which remained popular with audiences for nearly three decades from the 1930s until the late 1950s. Jazz originated in the late-19th to early-20th century. It developed out of many forms of music, including blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . It also incorporated interpretations of American and European classical music, entwined with African and slave folk songs and
7095-584: The U.S. Female jazz performers and composers have contributed to jazz throughout its history. Although Betty Carter , Ella Fitzgerald , Adelaide Hall , Billie Holiday , Peggy Lee , Abbey Lincoln , Anita O'Day , Dinah Washington , and Ethel Waters were recognized for their vocal talent, less familiar were bandleaders, composers, and instrumentalists such as pianist Lil Hardin Armstrong , trumpeter Valaida Snow , and songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields . Women began playing instruments in jazz in
7224-471: The White Stripes and Arctic Monkeys, the nearest to a new indie band hit is pop guitar band McFly at number 30 with their song "Happiness", only charting after a special called "McFly: All About Us" was broadcast by ITV on 14 November 2020. After having his own independent record company in the 1990s which charted a number of releases in the main UK charts, prog rock singer Fish decided not to sign up to
7353-562: The attraction of creating independent labels for the genre. MF Doom 's album Madvillainy sold over 150,000 copies, making it Stones Throw Records highest selling underground album. In 2004, Telstar Records went bankrupt in the UK after giving Victoria Beckham a £1.5 million record deal. Like Savage Records a decade earlier Telstar did not stick to their niche (they started off as a compilations label - similar to Ronco and K-Tel - before signing children's TV stars and dance acts to their XSRhythm and Multiply labels) and tried to operate in
7482-404: The bands got bigger the releases ended up going through major distribution channels like Arvato (its also worth pointing out that BMG would be seen as being one of the largest independent record companies of the 21st century after Sony BMG was dissolved). Richard Branson sold the independent label he co-founded with Simon Draper and Nik Powell ( Virgin Records ) to Thorn EMI in 1992 and
7611-552: The blues are undocumented, though they can be seen as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. However, as Gerhard Kubik points out, whereas the spirituals are homophonic , rural blues and early jazz "was largely based on concepts of heterophony ". During the early 19th century an increasing number of black musicians learned to play European instruments, particularly the violin, which they used to parody European dance music in their own cakewalk dances. In turn, European American minstrel show performers in blackface popularized
7740-408: The case of Factory, one of Tony Wilson's beliefs was that "musicians own everything, the company owns nothing", which caused problems for the firm when it was going to be taken over by Roger Ames' London Recordings (a 'boutique' semi-independent label which followed Ames from Polygram to Warners when he became CEO). London Recordings did not have to buy Factory out right because the artists owned
7869-423: The catalogues of Echo , Infectious and Sanctuary (the biggest independent record label in the UK before it went bankrupt), while Cherry Red Records , who had a few 'heritage acts' like Hawkwind on their main label, were mainly concerned with their re-issue labels such as 7T's Records (1970s music), 3 Loop Music (indie music) and Cherry Pop (mainly chart pop from the 1980s). From 2013, Warner Music had to sell
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#17330926786357998-438: The company is sometimes excluded from various lists of 'greatest independent labels' due to its association with Island Records in the 1980s (though ranked at number 7 on the NME's list from 2015). In the United States, independent labels such as Beserkley found success with artists such as The Modern Lovers . Another factor that came to define independent labels was the method of distribution, which had to be independent of
8127-541: The development of blue notes in blues and jazz. As Kubik explains: Many of the rural blues of the Deep South are stylistically an extension and merger of basically two broad accompanied song-style traditions in the west central Sudanic belt: W. C. Handy became interested in folk blues of the Deep South while traveling through the Mississippi Delta. In this folk blues form, the singer would improvise freely within
8256-506: The early 1920s, drawing particular recognition on piano. When male jazz musicians were drafted during World War II, many all-female bands replaced them. The International Sweethearts of Rhythm , which was founded in 1937, was a popular band that became the first all-female integrated band in the U.S. and the first to travel with the USO , touring Europe in 1945. Women were members of the big bands of Woody Herman and Gerald Wilson . Beginning in
8385-446: The early days. Indies release rock , soul , R&B , jazz , blues , gospel , reggae , hip hop , and world music . Music appearing on indie labels is often referred to as indie music , or more specifically by genre, such as indie hip-hop . Independent record labels are small companies that produce and distribute records . They are not affiliated with or funded by the three major records labels . According to SoundScan and
8514-480: The education of freed African Americans. Although strict segregation limited employment opportunities for most blacks, many were able to find work in entertainment. Black musicians were able to provide entertainment in dances, minstrel shows , and in vaudeville , during which time many marching bands were formed. Black pianists played in bars, clubs, and brothels, as ragtime developed. Ragtime appeared as sheet music, popularized by African-American musicians such as
8643-556: The entertainer Ernest Hogan , whose hit songs appeared in 1895. Two years later, Vess Ossman recorded a medley of these songs as a banjo solo known as "Rag Time Medley". Also in 1897, the white composer William Krell published his " Mississippi Rag " as the first written piano instrumental ragtime piece, and Tom Turpin published his "Harlem Rag", the first rag published by an African-American. Classically trained pianist Scott Joplin produced his " Original Rags " in 1898 and, in 1899, had an international hit with " Maple Leaf Rag ",
8772-423: The firm running TV channels in the 21st century based on Clubland and Universal's Now Music brands. Also in 1991 Rough Trade Distribution went bankrupt, causing a number of indie labels to stop trading (including Rough Trade itself and - indirectly - Factory, who had already spent a large amount of money on various projects such as their headquarters at Fac251 ) and others to be sold off in part to majors. In
8901-490: The first annual coordinated celebration of independent music across the world, for which the Australian Independent Record Labels Association created a list of the greatest independent records of all time. After Wenham's departure, WIN's director of Legal and Business Affairs, Charlie Phillips, was promoted to the leadership role, named as chief operating Officer. He would report directly to
9030-459: The first jazz group to record, and Bix Beiderbecke was one of the most prominent jazz soloists of the 1920s. The Chicago Style was developed by white musicians such as Eddie Condon , Bud Freeman , Jimmy McPartland , and Dave Tough . Others from Chicago such as Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa became leading members of swing during the 1930s. Many bands included both Black and white musicians. These musicians helped change attitudes toward race in
9159-558: The first three quarters of 2020, a period which did not include the release of the Billboard album chart topping BE by BTS, but did include the period when the label bought into Han Sung Soo's Pledis Entertainment . In October 2020, Big Hit Entertainment floated on the Korean stock market with founder Bang Si-hyuk giving the members of BTS shares in the company and his stake in Big Hit making him
9288-415: The first written music which was rhythmically based on an African motif (1803). From the perspective of African-American music, the "habanera rhythm" (also known as "congo"), "tango-congo", or tango . can be thought of as a combination of tresillo and the backbeat . The habanera was the first of many Cuban music genres which enjoyed periods of popularity in the United States and reinforced and inspired
9417-413: The following decades, album brands such as AATW's Clubland and Floorfillers or the Ministry of Sound's The Annual and Euphoria (with the latter brand picked up from Telstar) would turn-up in the compilations top 20 so regularly that the majors became interested, with Sony taking over Ministry of Sound's record company and AATW getting into a joint-venture with Universal Music TV, which ended up with
9546-432: The general consensus was that the punk rock movement was the main turning point for independent labels, with the movement's do-it-yourself ethos creating an even greater proliferation of independent labels. Scholars of punk from Dave Laing (1985) to Matt Worley (2017) have consistently argued that independent labels were, along with self-produced punk fanzines, key to punk's influential DIY heart. Worth noting here though
9675-406: The genre being given a more prominent role in music history than it had. The pub rock scene included labels such as Chiswick Records and Stiff Records , the latter being a company known for rude slogans, bizarre releases (such as The Wit And Wisdom Of Ronald Reagan ) and tours by train. Even though Stiff Records released the UK's first punk single, ("New Rose" by The Damned on 22 October 1976),
9804-532: The habanera rhythm and cinquillo , are heard in the ragtime compositions of Joplin and Turpin. Joplin's " Solace " (1909) is generally considered to be in the habanera genre: both of the pianist's hands play in a syncopated fashion, completely abandoning any sense of a march rhythm. Ned Sublette postulates that the tresillo/habanera rhythm "found its way into ragtime and the cakewalk," whilst Roberts suggests that "the habanera influence may have been part of what freed black music from ragtime's European bass". In
9933-423: The indie chart. Acts promoted this way initially included Sleeper on BMG's Indolent Records and Echobelly on Sony's Fauve Records. However, at this point its worth noting that Sony owned half of Creation Records at the time (with Alan McGee too important within the scene to be labelled a 'fake'), that Fauve Records was set up as part of a labels deal between Epic and former dance music label Rhythm King and as
10062-424: The influences of West African culture. Its composition and style have changed many times throughout the years with each performer's personal interpretation and improvisation, which is also one of the greatest appeals of the genre. By the 18th century, slaves in the New Orleans area gathered socially at a special market, in an area which later became known as Congo Square , famous for its African dances. By 1866,
10191-455: The instruments of jazz: brass, drums, and reeds tuned in the European 12-tone scale. Small bands contained a combination of self-taught and formally educated musicians, many from the funeral procession tradition. These bands traveled in black communities in the deep south. Beginning in 1914, Louisiana Creole and African-American musicians played in vaudeville shows which carried jazz to cities in
10320-586: The label managed to make it into the 1990s with a number of dance and hip-hop hits by artists such as Silver Bullet and A Homeboy, Hippy and A Funky Dread (issued on Savage's Tam Tam dance label). Around the time Soho had their top ten UK hit, Mimran decided that Savage would not just be a British indie, but would be an American major instead. Savage Records went on a spending spree in America, which resulted in them opening plush offices on Broadway, hiring Michael Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo and signing David Bowie to
10449-408: The label was closely associated with. Whether indie fans dismiss Stock Aitken Waterman as cheesy pop or not, this was as true for Waterman as it was for Ivo Watts-Russell (4AD), Alan Horne (Postcard), Daniel Miller (Mute), Alan McGee (Creation) or Tony Wilson (Factory). The UK Indie Chart became a major source of exposure for artists on independent labels, with the top ten singles regularly aired on
10578-554: The last two spent as CEO . As a driving force in helping indie labels being able to compete worldwide with bigger companies, Wenham featured in Billboard ' s "Top Women in Music" every year since publication. She stepped down from her role at WIN in December 2018, the following year taking on a non-executive director 's role at Funnel Music. On 4 July 2008, WIN ran " Independents Day ",
10707-567: The late 1950s into the 1990s. Jewish Americans played a significant role in jazz. As jazz spread, it developed to encompass many different cultures, and the work of Jewish composers in Tin Pan Alley helped shape the many different sounds that jazz came to incorporate. Jewish Americans were able to thrive in Jazz because of the probationary whiteness that they were allotted at the time. George Bornstein wrote that African Americans were sympathetic to
10836-539: The late 1950s, using the mode , or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation, as did free jazz , which explored playing without regular meter, beat and formal structures. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock music 's rhythms, electric instruments, and highly amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay. Other styles and genres abound in
10965-478: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues , ragtime , European harmony , African rhythmic rituals, spirituals , hymns , marches , vaudeville song, and dance music . Since the 1920s Jazz Age , it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music . Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes , complex chords , call and response vocals , polyrhythms and improvisation . As jazz spread around
11094-436: The lowest share of the total music market, at only 16%. In 2017, South Korea's indie market showed the healthiest share of the total music market, 88%. In 2017, the UK indie market had a 23% share of the total music market. In 2017, the US indie market had a 34% share of the total music market. Jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans , Louisiana , in
11223-514: The major label. These labels are frequently referred to as vanity labels or boutique labels, and are intended to appease established artists or allow them to discover and promote newer artists. According to the Association of Independent Music , "A 'major' is defined in AIM's constitution as a multinational company which (together with the companies in its group) has more than 5% of the world market(s) for
11352-493: The major labels for records to be included in the UK Indie Chart , with labels such as Industrial and Factory retaining full independence (though Beggars was excluded as they had a deal with Warner Brothers for Gary Numan at the time). The late 1970s had seen the establishment of independent distribution companies such as Pinnacle and Spartan, providing independent labels an effective means of distribution without involving
11481-462: The major labels. Distribution was further improved with the establishment of 'The Cartel', an association of companies such as Rough Trade Records , Backs Records, and Red Rhino , which helped to take releases from small labels and get them into record shops nationwide. The UK Indie Chart was first compiled in 1980, with the first number one being "Where's Captain Kirk?" by Spizz and his band (billed on
11610-447: The majors at their own game. David Mimran's Savage Records (known for British band Soho and their Smiths-sampling indie-dance hit "Hippychick" in 1991) was set up by the Swiss teenager in 1986 and funded by his multi-millionaire father. Due to the almost endless financing of his father and the fact their A&R manager (a Swiss record shop owner called Bernard Fanin) had industry experience,
11739-924: The many top players he employed, such as George Brunies , Sharkey Bonano , and future members of the Original Dixieland Jass Band . During the early 1900s, jazz was mostly performed in African-American and mulatto communities due to segregation laws. Storyville brought jazz to a wider audience through tourists who visited the port city of New Orleans. Many jazz musicians from African-American communities were hired to perform in bars and brothels. These included Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton in addition to those from other communities, such as Lorenzo Tio and Alcide Nunez . Louis Armstrong started his career in Storyville and found success in Chicago. Storyville
11868-492: The masters and so London could pick and choose which acts they wanted, dealing with them directly (though due to problems with the administration, London did not get the rights to New Order's catalogue for a couple of years and so a company called CentreDate Co Ltd was set up to license them back to London). However, not all indie record labels failed in this era due the problems with Rough Trade Distribution, some failed because they did not stick to their niche and tried to take on
11997-413: The melody was stated briefly at the beginning and most of the piece was improvised. Modal jazz abandoned chord progressions to allow musicians to improvise even more. In many forms of jazz, a soloist is supported by a rhythm section of one or more chordal instruments (piano, guitar), double bass, and drums. The rhythm section plays chords and rhythms that outline the composition structure and complement
12126-679: The music internationally, combining syncopation with European harmonic accompaniment. In the mid-1800s the white New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk adapted slave rhythms and melodies from Cuba and other Caribbean islands into piano salon music. New Orleans was the main nexus between the Afro-Caribbean and African American cultures. The Black Codes outlawed drumming by slaves, which meant that African drumming traditions were not preserved in North America, unlike in Cuba, Haiti, and elsewhere in
12255-578: The music of New Orleans with the music of Cuba, Wynton Marsalis observes that tresillo is the New Orleans "clavé", a Spanish word meaning "code" or "key", as in the key to a puzzle, or mystery. Although the pattern is only half a clave , Marsalis makes the point that the single-celled figure is the guide-pattern of New Orleans music. Jelly Roll Morton called the rhythmic figure the Spanish tinge and considered it an essential ingredient of jazz. The abolition of slavery in 1865 led to new opportunities for
12384-476: The national television show The Chart Show . By the late 1980s, the major labels had identified that there was an opportunity in indie music and so teamed up with many of the main figures of the indie scene to launch indie music record labels. WEA (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic) teamed up with Geoff Travis and él Records' Mike Alway to launch Blanco y Negro , followed a few years later by Alan McGee's Elevation label (even though some indie fans viewed this development in
12513-460: The northeastern United States, a "hot" style of playing ragtime had developed, notably James Reese Europe 's symphonic Clef Club orchestra in New York City, which played a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall in 1912. The Baltimore rag style of Eubie Blake influenced James P. Johnson 's development of stride piano playing, in which the right hand plays the melody, while the left hand provides
12642-596: The northern and western parts of the U.S. Jazz became international in 1914, when the Creole Band with cornettist Freddie Keppard performed the first ever jazz concert outside the United States, at the Pantages Playhouse Theatre in Winnipeg , Canada. In New Orleans, a white bandleader named Papa Jack Laine integrated blacks and whites in his marching band. He was known as "the father of white jazz" because of
12771-470: The performer may change melodies, harmonies, and time signatures. In early Dixieland , a.k.a. New Orleans jazz, performers took turns playing melodies and improvising countermelodies . In the swing era of the 1920s–40s, big bands relied more on arrangements which were written or learned by ear and memorized. Soloists improvised within these arrangements. In the bebop era of the 1940s, big bands gave way to small groups and minimal arrangements in which
12900-495: The period 1820–1850. Some of the earliest [Mississippi] Delta settlers came from the vicinity of New Orleans, where drumming was never actively discouraged for very long and homemade drums were used to accompany public dancing until the outbreak of the Civil War. Another influence came from the harmonic style of hymns of the church, which black slaves had learned and incorporated into their own music as spirituals . The origins of
13029-454: The perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music. But critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has
13158-487: The plight of the Jewish American and vice versa. As disenfranchised minorities themselves, Jewish composers of popular music saw themselves as natural allies with African Americans. The Jazz Singer with Al Jolson is one example of how Jewish Americans were able to bring jazz, music that African Americans developed, into popular culture. Benny Goodman was a vital Jewish American to the progression of Jazz. Goodman
13287-459: The post-Civil War period (after 1865), African Americans were able to obtain surplus military bass drums, snare drums and fifes, and an original African-American drum and fife music emerged, featuring tresillo and related syncopated rhythmic figures. This was a drumming tradition that was distinct from its Caribbean counterparts, expressing a uniquely African-American sensibility. "The snare and bass drummers played syncopated cross-rhythms ," observed
13416-455: The pre-Now days of Open Top Cars and Girls in T'Shirts , Raiders of the Pop Charts and Chart Encounters Of The Hit Kind . In fact, apart from a few soul music compilations billed as Dance Mix - Dance Hits on Epic and a few throwback disco collections, Khan's company was the only label regularly charting with music that could be classed as with club or dance until Stylus Music teamed up with
13545-672: The pre-jazz era and contributed to the codification of jazz through the publication of some of the first jazz sheet music. The music of New Orleans , Louisiana had a profound effect on the creation of early jazz. In New Orleans, slaves could practice elements of their culture such as voodoo and playing drums. Many early jazz musicians played in the bars and brothels of the red-light district around Basin Street called Storyville . In addition to dance bands, there were marching bands which played at lavish funerals (later called jazz funerals ). The instruments used by marching bands and dance bands became
13674-537: The prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music" which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines. The mid-1950s saw the emergence of hard bop , which introduced influences from rhythm and blues , gospel , and blues to small groups and particularly to saxophone and piano. Modal jazz developed in
13803-707: The recently elected chair, Justin West, of Canadian company Secret City Records. As of August 2019 other member organisations of WIN included A2IM (USA), ABMI (Brazil), ADISQ (Canada – Quebec only), AIM (UK), AMAEI (Portugal), A.S.I.A.r (Argentina), Audiocoop (Italy), BIMA (Belgium), CIMA (Canada), DUP (Denmark), FONO (Norway), HAIL (Hungary), IMCJ (Japan), IMICHILE (Chile) IMNZ (New Zealand), IMPALA (Europe), indieCo (Finland), IndieSuisse (Switzerland), Liak (Korea), P.I.L. (Israel), PMI (Italy), Runda (Balkans), SOM (Sweden), stomp (Netherlands), UFI (Spain), UPFI (France), VTMOE (Austria) and VUT (Germany). Particularly active are
13932-411: The record as Spizzenergi ). "Where's Captain Kirk?" had been a constant seller for Geoff Travis' Rough Trade Records , but never got into the chart compiled by BMRB (British Market Research Bureau) as a lot of independent stores were not chart return shops and because a more accurate way of collating sales via EPOS (electronic point-of-sale systems) had yet to be introduced. The chart was unrelated to
14061-402: The record's title and band name were set in ' stencil ' style text in a black ring reminiscent of Robert Indiana and Jasper Johns ' works. These sleeves usually folded out into large posters containing additional artwork and text. The label also put out three editions of Bullshit Detector , compilations of demos and rough recordings that had been sent to the band which they felt represented
14190-410: The rhythm and bassline. In Ohio and elsewhere in the mid-west the major influence was ragtime, until about 1919. Around 1912, when the four-string banjo and saxophone came in, musicians began to improvise the melody line, but the harmony and rhythm remained unchanged. A contemporary account states that blues could only be heard in jazz in the gut-bucket cabarets, which were generally looked down upon by
14319-547: The sale of records or music videos. The majors are currently Sony , Warner Music (WMG) and the Universal Music Group (UMG), with EMI and BMG (RCA/Ariola International) being the other two majors that made up the 'Big 5' of the 1980s and 1990s. If a major owns 50% or more of the total shares in a company, that company would (usually) be owned or controlled by that major." Independent labels have historically anticipated developments in popular music , beginning with
14448-498: The sixth richest person in Korea. The international peak body for the indie music industry, Worldwide Independent Network, was founded in 2006. WIN is a coalition of independent music bodies from countries throughout the world. Alison Wenham spent 17 years leading the UK's Association of Independent Music (AIM), which she launched in 1999. During this time she also helped to found WIN in 2006, remaining at WIN for twelve years, with
14577-552: The slang connotations of the term, saying: "When Broadway picked it up, they called it 'J-A-Z-Z'. It wasn't called that. It was spelled 'J-A-S-S'. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies." The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the 20th Century . Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to rock -infused fusion . Attempts have been made to define jazz from
14706-444: The soloist. In avant-garde and free jazz , the separation of soloist and band is reduced, and there is license, or even a requirement, for the abandoning of chords, scales, and meters. Since the emergence of bebop, forms of jazz that are commercially oriented or influenced by popular music have been criticized. According to Bruce Johnson, there has always been a "tension between jazz as a commercial music and an art form". Regarding
14835-514: The time were signed and saw great commercial success with independent labels. These included Hep Stars ( Olga Records ), Tages ( Platina Records ) and Ola & the Janglers ( Gazell Records ). According to Företagskällan , these three artists secured an interest for minor record labels, a situation which otherwise would've led to 'the big five' having full control of the Swedish music scene during
14964-469: The tracks have been collected and re-released on the A-Sides parts one and two compilation CDs. Crass' back catalogue, however, remains in print, both in vinyl and CD format. Ex-Crass members Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher continue to put out their creative works (for example, material by Last Amendment , and Vaucher's book Animal Rites ) through Exitstencil, often in collaboration with other publishers such as
15093-485: The trade associations in countries and regions with well-established music markets: AIM (UK), A2IM (USA), AIR (Australia), CIMA (Canada), VUT (Germany), IMNZ (New Zealand), UFI (Spain); IMICHILE (Chile), ABMI (Brazil), and IMPALA (Europe). In 2016, WIN's WINTEL report, an analysis of the global economic and cultural impact of the indie sector, showed the share of the global market as 37.6%. The sector generated worldwide revenues of US$ 5.6 billion in 2015. In Australia,
15222-500: The twice-daily ferry between both cities to perform, and the habanera quickly took root in the musically fertile Crescent City. John Storm Roberts states that the musical genre habanera "reached the U.S. twenty years before the first rag was published." For the more than quarter-century in which the cakewalk , ragtime , and proto-jazz were forming and developing, the habanera was a consistent part of African-American popular music. Habaneras were widely available as sheet music and were
15351-566: The use of tresillo-based rhythms in African-American music. New Orleans native Louis Moreau Gottschalk 's piano piece "Ojos Criollos (Danse Cubaine)" (1860) was influenced by the composer's studies in Cuba: the habanera rhythm is clearly heard in the left hand. In Gottschalk's symphonic work "A Night in the Tropics" (1859), the tresillo variant cinquillo appears extensively. The figure was later used by Scott Joplin and other ragtime composers. Comparing
15480-536: The world in terms of revenue and ahead of countries with higher populations such as Canada and South Korea. Digital revenue, at 44%, had overtaken that coming from physical sales, at 33%. A spokesperson from the company Unified Music Group said that governments were beginning to recognise the financial and cultural worth of a thriving music industry, but there was still a big challenge for the independents to compete with well-funded tech companies that have an anti- copyright agenda. In 2017, Finland's indie market share had
15609-569: The world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles , biguine , ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation . However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands , Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisational style), and gypsy jazz (a style that emphasized musette waltzes) were
15738-464: The world, with V2 Records Benelux founded in 1997, a record company which continues to operate to this day. In 2001, Daptone Records records would be founded in New York, a funk and soul label known for Sharon Jones , Charles Bradley and a lot of the musicians who would appear on Amy Winehouse 's Back to Black album in 2006. As the indie hip hop or underground hip hop scene began to grow, so did
15867-498: The writer Robert Palmer, speculating that "this tradition must have dated back to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and it could have not have developed in the first place if there hadn't been a reservoir of polyrhythmic sophistication in the culture it nurtured." African-American music began incorporating Afro-Cuban rhythmic motifs in the 19th century when the habanera (Cuban contradanza ) gained international popularity. Musicians from Havana and New Orleans would take
15996-493: The year's crop was harvested and several days were set aside for celebration. As late as 1861, a traveler in North Carolina saw dancers dressed in costumes that included horned headdresses and cow tails and heard music provided by a sheepskin-covered "gumbo box", apparently a frame drum; triangles and jawbones furnished the auxiliary percussion. There are quite a few [accounts] from the southeastern states and Louisiana dating from
16125-404: Was having a better time than Savage Records in the early to mid-90s American marketplace was Epitaph Records . It was Epitaph that released The Offspring 's 1994 album Smash , which would become the best-selling independent record of the 1990s. The album was certified six times platinum in the United States and sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. In the UK, the indie chart was still
16254-433: Was major ... , and I carried this device into my melody as well. The publication of his " Memphis Blues " sheet music in 1912 introduced the 12-bar blues to the world (although Gunther Schuller argues that it is not really a blues, but "more like a cakewalk"). This composition, as well as his later " St. Louis Blues " and others, included the habanera rhythm, and would become jazz standards . Handy's music career began in
16383-511: Was perhaps the most successful independent label from that era. Several established artists started their own independent labels, including the Beatles ' Apple Records , and the Rolling Stones ' Rolling Stones Records . These labels tended to fail commercially or be acquired by the major labels. Internationally, the situation was different. In Sweden , three of the four biggest rock bands at
16512-623: Was the 1980 single "You Can Be You" by Honey Bane , a teenage girl who at the time was staying at Dial House whilst on the run from a children's home (however, Bane's backing band on this release are in fact Crass, using the name Donna and the Kebabs ). Others who recorded for the label included Zounds , Flux of Pink Indians , Captain Sensible , the Cravats , Conflict , Icelandic band Kukl (who included singer Björk ), classical singer Jane Gregory and
16641-529: Was the leader of a racially integrated band named King of Swing. His jazz concert in the Carnegie Hall in 1938 was the first ever to be played there. The concert was described by Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history". Shep Fields also helped to popularize "Sweet" Jazz music through his appearances and Big band remote broadcasts from such landmark venues as Chicago's Palmer House , Broadway's Paramount Theater and
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