When a great Indie Band goes to a major - Music

Mercury
Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male
Location: St. Louis

This is just something I've observed: that there have been several great examples of an Indie Rock band putting out a masterpiece album on an indie label and then being signed to a major label. It seems to me that oftentimes the first major label album is excellent as well and perhaps even better than the great Indie record they last put out.

Examples: the Replacements' Let It be/Tim, the Pixies' Surfer Rosa/Doolittle, Modest Mouse's Lonesome Crowded West/Moon and Antarctica, Death Cab's Transatlanticism/Plans (although in that example the indie album is superior to the major label follow up, but I do love Plans as well), obviously Nirvana's Bleach/Nevermind, the Shin's Oh Inverted World/Chutes Too Narrow, etc.

Anyway, it's interesting but it seems often that an indie band puts out some of their best stuff after they are signed to a major label and then they start, perhaps, losing some of the magic after that.
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paladisiac
= music

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Location: Denver

but eventually the major label (success) ruins the band in one way or another...
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Mercurydylan89 wrote:

This is just something I've observed: that there have been several great examples of an Indie Rock band putting out a masterpiece album on an indie label and then being signed to a major label. It seems to me that oftentimes the first major label album is excellent as well and perhaps even better than the great Indie record they last put out.

Examples: the Replacements' Let It be/Tim, the Pixies' Surfer Rosa/Doolittle, Modest Mouse's Lonesome Crowded West/Moon and Antarctica, Death Cab's Transatlanticism/Plans (although in that example the indie album is superior to the major label follow up, but I do love Plans as well), obviously Nirvana's Bleach/Nevermind, the Shin's Oh Inverted World/Chutes Too Narrow, etc.

Anyway, it's interesting but it seems often that an indie band puts out some of their best stuff after they are signed to a major label and then they start, perhaps, losing some of the magic after that.

Out of the six examples you gave, I prefer the indie album in four of them, I'm torn on one and I couldn't care less about Death Cab. So I disagree with your hypothesis based on the given examples, obviously.

Mercury
Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male
Location: St. Louis

lethalnezzle wrote:

Out of the six examples you gave, I prefer the indie album in four of them, I'm torn on one and I couldn't care less about Death Cab. So I disagree with your hypothesis based on the given examples, obviously.

Fine, even if you like the indie records more, do you agree that in these cases they at least maintained that high level that had whilst still indie? I'd say I like the indie album more in some of these cases too but the main thing is that they seemed to stay at least for a whole in a creative state as bands. It seems like it takes a bit of time before the "major label curse" or something sets in.

And I adore Death Cabs records up to about 2005.
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ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

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Mercurydylan89 wrote:

Fine, even if you like the indie records more, do you agree that in these cases they at least maintained that high level that had whilst still indie? I'd say I like the indie album more in some of these cases too but the main thing is that they seemed to stay at least for a whole in a creative state as bands. It seems like it takes a bit of time before the "major label curse" or something sets in.

And I adore Death Cabs records up to about 2005.

There seems to be this assumption that major labels never give artists any artistic freedom, and whilst that view was obviously borne out of some truth I still think it's a ridiculous overgeneralisation. Plenty of bands are given free reign to record what they want to by major labels. I think it has more to do with a band's ability and quality than anything to do with label interference in most cases. Great bands, when on form, will make great music in spite of their label home, and not because of it. Also, when a major label signs a band based on a major indie success then the label probably want the band to replicate the work they signed them because of to some extent, and that, added to the fact that the band in question has already just created a great album and are perhaps at the creative apex of their career, means that the likelihood is that the first major label album will also be great (or at least of similar sound/quality), although perhaps a bit more polished. I honestly think signing to a major has nothing to do with how good an album is, nor do I believe in some "major label curse" (although I do not deny that certain bands have had problems in the past, and there will be many more similar issues in the future), but rather that great bands, when great, make great music. Simple as that; nothing more, nothing less.

Mercury
Turn your back on the pay-you-back last call

Gender: Male
Location: St. Louis

lethalnezzle wrote:

There seems to be this assumption that major labels never give artists any artistic freedom, and whilst that view was obviously borne out of some truth I still think it's a ridiculous overgeneralisation. Plenty of bands are given free reign to record what they want to by major labels. I think it has more to do with a band's ability and quality than anything to do with label interference in most cases. Great bands, when on form, will make great music in spite of their label home, and not because of it. Also, when a major label signs a band based on a major indie success then the label probably want the band to replicate the work they signed them because of to some extent, and that, added to the fact that the band in question has already just created a great album and are perhaps at the creative apex of their career, means that the likelihood is that the first major label album will also be great (or at least of similar sound/quality), although perhaps a bit more polished. I honestly think signing to a major has nothing to do with how good an album is, nor do I believe in some "major label curse" (although I do not deny that certain bands have had problems in the past, and there will be many more similar issues in the future), but rather that great bands, when great, make great music. Simple as that; nothing more, nothing less.

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Well put. Indeed.
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-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

Interesting... either they have correlation, but not causation, or becoming mainstream is really where it is at Smile

.

Robert Anton Wilson
Epic Proghead

Gender: Male
Age: 56
Location: Inside

lethalnezzle wrote:

Great bands, when on form, will make great music in spite of their label home, and not because of it.

I would think that is the gist of it.

We also have to realize that the indie label/album has grown in presence thanks to new technologies but has always existed. Most bands come to a label with a demo and get picked up on the strength of that demo. The band then has the possibility to either do a polished a version of the demo or to do new composition. Whether the label interferes with this is something I would expect to be piecemeal.

The idea is that it is nowadays it is easier to release a demo which reaches releasable quality and some band just do that rather than wait for the big label sign in and this sometimes plays the role of what the demo used to do but this is played in the public sphere (between the band and its audience) rather than in the private sphere (between the label and the band).

A lot of bands/artists have had their demo released as an official albums after their initial big label debut album even from back in the days before technologies allowed this. Examples are Nirvana, the Tragically Hip. Tom Waits and likely more I cannot think of the top of my head now. These bands obviously had a demo that would have made an indie label nowadays but they still opted once signed to a big label to work on new material and in these 3 cases no matter what you say about how much you like their demo album, you cannot deny that their major label release was not great.Hips!

Robert Anton Wilson
Epic Proghead

Gender: Male
Age: 56
Location: Inside

This beg the question ... do we think that Nevermind would have been a less revered album if Bleach had had a major diffusion?

well I know the answer is no but I don't know, sound to me interesting to ponder upon. I need to get to bad dang.

Norman Bates

Gender: Male
Age: 51
Location: Paris, France

Mercurydylan89 wrote:

the Pixies' Surfer Rosa/Doolittle

Didin't they always stick to 4AD?