An
interesting article posted elsewhere points out some very interesting quandries ...
Big labels are "... always going to have a bigger army that is going to help them win most of the time."
"The major labels simply have more money and manpower to wheedle programmers into adding their music to broadcast play lists. The big players, far more so than their independent rivals, also have the wherewithal to build demand for their acts by subsidizing their tours and record-store advertising, producing music videos and landing them on television shows."
"This imbalance in resources accounts, in part, for the disparity between sales and airplay in the music business."
"The independent sector, which includes hundreds of labels that may specialize in genres from polka music to speed metal [and
ska, of course], and that sell music directly or through one of the bigger companies' distribution arms, accounted for an estimated 18 percent of new album sales in the United States so far this year, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Their combined share of the industry, as measured by these sales, is larger than that of two of the four big companies, Warner Music Group and EMI Group. The independents, however, command a far smaller share of the limited slots on play lists in major radio formats, as the Top 40 chart illustrates."
# # #
Ska is primarily underground music, worldwide. Read
another article that has a very intellectual explanation of why ska is treated so badly by major labels and mainstream radio ...
BTW, I would be extremely remiss if I neglected to mention that I put my money where my mouth is on this, not only putting on ska shows for years via
Kingston Beat (our infamous
"Experiments in Ska" series was widely predicted to fail miserably), but also with
Syracuse Community Radio, which is a serious attempt (after many poor decisions we're now recovering from) to bring real independent radio to Syracuse.
If you're into ska, you're already thinking for yourself in direct contravention of corporate America. Go the next step and help others find a voice ...