Bands who dream of going it alone can just dream on

REVOLVER:All the talk about a brave new world where you and your band could make it without having to navigate the traditional record company route thanks to the liberating effect of the internet has turned out to be just talk. Yes, you can use MySpace etc to promote your work, and, yes, can become your own record company and distribute and sell your wares without a middle man. It could all be so very David and Goliath. But this simply hasn't happened – and given the way is industry is run and structured, it probably never will, writes BRIAN BOYD

Even those acts – Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen – who supposedly “broke” on MySpace all had huge budgets behind them; their so-called “grassroots appeal” was just a useful marketing line. And, true, Radiohead may have done it with

In Rainbows, but only after EMI spent millions building them up over a series of albums so they had the name recognition.

It’s always been one of the most curious aspects of the industry that even the most rock’n’roll, stick-it- to-the-man types will quickly fall into line behind a “let’s be all counter- cultural” record company campaign. And the deification of indie labels (which, in how they operate, can be more ruthless and unethical than the majors) has always been a strange one, given that a major label was good enough for the likes of The Sex Pistols and Nirvana.

Trying to forge a career online, competing with millions of other acts, is like “screaming in space”, according to a new report by the global International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which looked at all the facts, figures and sales reports available.

Furthermore, the minimum spend required to give a new band on a major label a fighting chance in today’s hysterical marketplace is €1 million. This breaks down to about €200,000 for the artist’s advance; €200,000 for recording costs, €200,000 for producing three videos (if your album hasn’t got three singles on it, go back and re-record it); €100,000 for tour support; and €300,000 for promotion and marketing.

You will have noticed that the amount spent on promotion and marketing is higher than the amount spent on actually recording the album. So much for your “art”, dude.

The only way to pay this €1 million back is to amass record sales of €1 million; only then will you turn a profit. This is why a band can be No 1 in the charts, all over the radio and selling out the 02, but also massively in debt and not even earning the average industrial wage. Is it any wonder drink and drugs get abused a tad in the music world?

Now consider that, at a rough average, only one out of 10 major label acts actually manages to repay this debt and turn a profit. Which is why the Coldplays and Lady Gagas are effectively paying for the other nine acts on the label. It’s a crap shoot, which explains the alarming turnover of bands, the flavours of the month quickly consigned to the bin unless they manage to perform.

The point remains that, despite all the flak they attract, the record companies are still the only ones with the experience, talent and knowledge to pick an act up out of a crappy little venue and place them at the toppermost of the poppermost.

All the indie pieties in the world won’t change that. Yes, it may be your “art”, but tell that to Mr Blobby. As the old Stiff Records T-shirt used to say: “Money talks. People mumble.”