Music Labels, Channels & Producers

Researching Into The Music Industry
Music Labels

Popular Worldwide Music labels:

EMI Music is one of the world’s leading music companies, home to some of the most successful and best known recording artists, Artists on EMI labels include: Lily Allen,  The Beatles, Beastie Boys, Coldplay, Gorillaz, David Guetta, Iron Maiden, Massive Attack, Kylie Minogue, Katy Perry, Pink Floyd, Sir Simon Rattle, Snoop Dogg, Tinie Tempah, Thirty Seconds To Mars, KT Tunstall and Robbie Williams.

Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom. UK artists such as artists such as Take That, Girls Aloud, Cheryl Cole, La Roux, Duffy, Klaxons, Delphic, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, The Saturdays, James Morrison, Kaiser Chiefs,Boyzone, Alphabeat, The Courteeners, S Club 7, S Club 8, Rachel Stevens and Ellie Goulding are under Polydor record label.

Def Jam Recordings is an American record label, focused primarily on hip hop and urban music, owned by Universal Music Group. n the UK, the label takes on the name Def Jam UK. Artists such as: BigBoi, Ghostface Killa, Jerimih, Justin Bieber, LLCoolJ, Ludacris, Rihanna and Kanye West are just a few successfull RnB/Hp-Hop aritsts under the Label. 

Young Money Entertainment is an American record label founded by rapper Lil Wayne. The label is an imprint of Cash Money Records and is distributed by Universal Republic Records. Current acts include Lil Wayne, Drake, T-Pain Nicki Minaj, Bow Wow, Mack Maine, Lil Chuckee and Shanell aka SnL. The label has released five #1 albums. They were Tha Carter III, Tha Carter IV, and I Am Not a Human Being by Lil Wayne, Thank Me Later by Drake, and Pink Friday by Nicki Minaj.

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. Artists include: J.Cole, Beyonce, Sean Garret, 3 6 Mafia, Willow Smith, Alexia Jordan, Cher, Destiny's Child, Katy B and Wyclef Jean. 

4AD is a British independent record label that was started in 1979 by Ivo Watts-Russell and Peter Kent, funded by Beggars Banquet Records, and is still active today. It now forms part of the Beggars Group, along with Matador Records, Rough Trade Records and XL Recordings.4AD current recording artists include Ariel Pink, The Big Pink, Blonde Redhead, Bon Iver,Camera Obscura, Deerhunter, Gang Gang Dance, The National, Scott Walker, St Vincent,Twin Shadow, tUnE-yArDs, and Zomby.

Heavenly Records is a London-based record label, distributed by EMI. Founded by Jeff Barrett, Heavenly  Records managed many successful indie bands of the time including Happy Mondays, Heavenly Recordings' first releases were 7" and 12" singles for bands Barrett had discovered. The label's early releases included singles and albums by acts such as Flowered Up, Saint Etienne, East Village and Manic Street Preachers. 

679 is the London based label with an independent ethos that continually invests in exciting new music and talent. They represent an eclectic mix of artists from The Streets and Plan B to The Mystery Jets and The Rifles to King Creosote and The Earlies. 679 is responsible for commissioning a number of creative promos including the stop motion video for Plan B, No Good. Always looking to innovate , the label regularly use new film makers to remix and re-interpret existing promos for further usage.






Logo Design
Overall, i have noticed quite a significant common design between the Label Logo's, all

• Square in shape.
• Use minimal colour.
• Mostly black and white.
• Use a maximum of two colours, normally primary colours or just black & white.
• Simple design, nothing too fancy.

Music TV Channels

Music television is a type of television programming which focuses predominantly on playing music videos from bands, usually on dedicated television channels broadcasting on satellite or cable. Music TVs may host their own shows charts, award prizes. Examples are: VIVA, Magic, MTV, Kerrang TV, Smash Hits, Channel AKA & Clubland TV.

I am slightly leaning more towards broadcasting my own music video via MTV, i am selecting this Channel in particular because i think it plays more up to date top 50 top songs which appeals to the younger generation, my target audience. I think if it was to be broad casted by Magic it wouldn't get as much attention rather it being on MTV; which overall is a bigger more successful conglomerate.

Music Producers

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording (i.e. "production") of an artist's music. A producer has many roles that may include, but are not limited to, gathering ideas for the project, selecting songs and/or musicians, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, controlling the recording sessions, and supervising the entire process through mixing and mastering. Producers also often take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, and negotiations.
Today, the recording industry has two kinds of producers: executive producer and music producer; they have different roles. While an executive producer oversees a project's finances, a music producer oversees the creation of the music.

My Own Record Label .
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion, and enforcement of copyright protection of sound recordings and music videos. The term "record label" derives from the circular label in the centre of a vinyl record which prominently displays the manufacturer's name, along with other information.

For my music video, the Record Label name needs to be something that represents me as the creator of the video, i wanted to inco-operate my name into the Label along with something relating to the music industry like "music" or "recordz", to the right i conducted a quick and brief brainstorm into names. My favourite name which stood out to me the most was "CJM Recordings." This is the name i am definitely going to use.

I then began to experiment with the logo design, i wanted 

something conventional and simple which i definitely think i achieved,  I was aiming for something conventional because i didn't want to over complicate the logo because it is what the audience are going to recognise over and over again and i didn't want it to be over the top. After i settled with my favourite design which was number 1, i began to design the small logo on Photoshop.

Final Record Label Logo
This is the final Logo design, i am very pleased with the final outcome. I didn't want to include alot of colour into it as i think it would look over-tryed.