Record Label

A record label is a brand or trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Often a record label is also a publishing company that manages brands and trademarks. They control how an artist is portrayed and what people think of them for example the record label publish the artists name, manages brands that are seen relating to the artist, music videos are published with them in and they advertise the artist. Then production of a record label co ordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing, promotion and enforcement of copyright rules and regulations for sound recordings and music videos.

There are three major record labels which are: Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Record labels are often under the control of another organization called a music group. They are typically owned by an international conglomerate such as one of the big three which hold the record label and often have non-music divisions also. A music group controls and consists of music publishing companies, record manufacturers, record distributors and record labels. For example Universal Music Group also have the Universal film industry and Sony Music Entertainment also sell Sony electrical product such as phones and gaming equipment.

The song that i chose to produce a music video for in doing my advanced portfolio coursework media project was Beyonce, Broken Hearted Girl. I did some research into the artist and her record label. She belongs to a major record label which is one of the big three, this record label is: Sony Music Entertainment and specifically Sony Music BMG Music Entertainment. She belongs to a conglomerate of Sony which is called Columbia Records.

For my music video i have followed in the footsteps of Beyonce and decided to choose Sony. It is a well know record label around the whole world with a variety of different artists on their record label and a huge percentage of pop music artists like Beyonce herself. If my artist was on this record label it would mean they were hugely successful and known to the majority of people in the world. Been part of one of the big three record labels would mean my artist would be promoted and advertised on a big scale which is exactly what would need to happen to follow a career in the music industry.