Research & Planning: Music labels role in the music industry

In class we looked at the role of the music labels in the music industry and how much of an impact they make on the artist/band. For example we looked at Ed Sheeran and how much control he has over himself as an artist and putting himself out into the public eye. His record label felt that his image did not match up to his voice and were afraid people would not want to buy his music because of how he looked, therefore they created his first two music videos with him not being in it much but only for a few seconds, which created this enigma of who this artist is as he was not seen clearly in his debut music videos.

The question we got was 'What role does the music label have in the music industry?'
In my opinion I think that the music label is hugely important in the music industry has they have the most control over the artist as they are the ones who are promoting this artist and supporting them. Image is quite important in the music industry, which beats the idea of 'don't judge a book by its cover' moral. For women there is a lot more pressure on having 'the image' in the sense of being skinny, nice skin, pretty face etc.. An example of someone who goes against this idea is Adele. Adele has a similar issue to Ed Sheeran as her look is not the look you would expect to see as an artist, as Adele is not skinny or shows a lot of skin in comparison to other artists who's bodies help them sell their records. On the other hand, this has made Adele as popular worldwide as she is an inspiration for her audience on how she looks and is recognised purely for her music.

However, I think the image is all about record sales for example, Lady GaGa is most famous for how she dresses and her creativity with her fashion, not necessarily her music. In my opinion, I think the attention helps to promote her and helps her to sell her records as the way she dresses makes her an 'individual icon' and people like this about her. People feel that she is just a gimmick and her music isn't really anything special but because of how she dresses people will give her the attention and record sales will be high as it is all about being recognised. GaGa being the individual she is, she has that control, however there is the idea that the music label helped encourage her to do this for record sales.