Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Case study: One artist’s jump from one record company to another....

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Parlophone records started in 1896 in Germany.It’s biggest success came when it signed The Beatles in 1962.The Beatles made Parlophone records famous worldwide. In 1973 Parlophone records was bought up by EMI. BUT Parlophone records kept it’s own distinct brand and identity.

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Some artists signed to Parlophone in 2010

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Lily Allen’s journey through three record companies

• Lily Allen’s first record signing was with a company called London Records in 2002.

• The executive who ‘signed’ her to the record label left – without a champion fighting her corner at the record label, she was dropped by London Records.

• In 2004 she had another go – this time signing to Regal Recordings. After achieving chart success, Lily Allen signed to EMI subsidiary Parlophone. All three record labels are owned and

controlled by EMI

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Lily Allen on Regal Records

• The label gave her £25,000 for recording and promotion costs.

• This wasn’t enough to secure advertising space in even one magazine for one month...

• The low amount of £ invested in her was because the record label were taking a risk on Lily Allen. She was anunknown artist in 2002...

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

So how did Lily Allen break into stardom if her record label didn’t invest in her?

By harnessing the power of VIRAL ADVERTISING, and putting SOCIAL MEDIA to work for her, Lily Allen became a huge hit on MySPace, with thousands of people subscribing to her homepage, and many thousands downloading her songs and becoming fans. She built up a mass fan base fast thanks to the power of VIRAL ADVERTISING

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Other methods of promotion that helped Lily Allen

• The record company employed ‘pluggers’ whose job it was to approach radio and club DJ’s with free Lily Allen singles to get them played on air.

• Radio: Kiss FM and BBC Radio 1 responded well, with Lily being profiled by the music magazine OBSERVER MUSIC MONTHLY (250,000 readers)

• Lily also released a few mixtapes that soon became collectors’ items...

Good promotion means coverage on radio and in the music press.

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

The online world of digital streaming was now open to Lily to succeed...

Before her big breakthrough, the late night niche audience channels were the only ones likely to give her airtime.

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Lily now has the power...

• Once Lilly Allen was taken up by the mainstream media, receiving radio play on the national stations and being featured as a cover star in a national newspaper’s magazine supplement, the record company let her have artistic freedom.

• Instead of the record company directing what kind of music producer she should work with, Lilly Allen was free to work with any producer she wanted...

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Why did Lily Allen leave Regal to join Parlophone?

If the record label is already one of EMI’s subsidiary labels anyway, why leave it if the move is just a sideways one? Artists have many reasons why they may leave one label to join another one.For Lily Allen, there were four reasons:•Parlophone Records had the prestige of working with British music legends past and present•They had excellent international contacts in a range of multi media formats; MTV and American music cable channels, which meant Lily could gain advance publicity on new album releases.•Lily Allen’s image was honed and perfected for album cover artwork, publicity shots and video releases.•Her old contract with Regal was up for renewal, and she had the freedom to see what other offers she could secure. Parophone’s was generous, with promises of a larger share in revenue from phone ringtones, digital downloads and multimedia packages (audio and visual media releases)

Single: ‘Smile’ (2006 Number One hit)

Album: ‘Alright Still (2006) ( 3 Platinum awards)

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Lily promotes album no. 2 • Allen promoted her new album all

around the world. She appeared on GMTV in the UK where she performed "The Fear". She again performed this song on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and The Sunday Night Project".

• She performed "Not Fair" on UK TV show T4 and was interviewed about the album on The One Show.

• Allen performed songs off the album and old hits on Radio 1's Big Weekend and at club night G-A-Y.

• She has also promoted the album with her tour and festivals around the world.

“It’s not me it’s you” released in the UK February 2009

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Do companies like Parlophone/EMI encourage a monoculture approach to the music industry?

Because of illegal downloading, the market share for record companies and artists is getting smaller, so they are less likely to take risks on new artists that haven’t got a proven track record of success.This means the big record labels end up relying on only those artists that are already successful.Some critics say this encourages a monoculture attitude – where diversity, originality and variety are avoided in favour of a bland, unoriginal output...

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

A monoculture? “About 80 per cent of the global music

market is owned by four companies: Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG. Last year EMI was reported to have dropped a fifth of its recording artists; Warner is preparing to dump half its list. EMI explained: "We believe that by concentrating our efforts on a tightened roster of artists we will increase our revenue-generating potential while reducing our costs." They make more money selling ten million copies of one album than a million copies each of ten albums, so they prefer a few "sure thing" pop acts.”

- Andrew Simms, New Statesman magazine, January 2005

Sean Delaney, West Hatch High School

Does the rise of digital media give even more power to the big 4 record labels?

Lily Allen made it big thanks to her talent and the power of social networking websites like MySpace and You tube.This allowed people to share her songs fast and easily via P2P networking and viral advertising.Once this hard work has been done, and artists like her are secured a global audience, do they really need a record company?

For an artist to succeed globally (USA especially) they still need a

big record label to support them...