Helping Indie Musicians Market Their Tunes

When the first iPods hit store shelves a decade ago, the music industry was dominated by five giant record labels. Most musicians who didn’t have a deal with one of them were doomed to obscurity and day jobs. Apple has since gone on to sell 320 million of the music players, and the once-dominant labels and retailers have been upended by the shift to digital. EMI Group, one of the four remaining big record companies, is being sold off in pieces. “Major labels as we knew them aren’t necessary, the same way the cart and horse became relatively unnecessary but people still need to get around,” says Amanda Palmer of the punk-cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls.

Scores of smaller companies have sprung up to help enterprising artists produce and distribute their tunes. Although nobody has reached Lady Gaga-level stardom without big-label backing, plenty of musicians succeed on a smaller scale on their own. “There was a set way that you got big as an artist or a band or got noticed back in the day,” says Maika Maile, the 22-year-old lead singer of There For Tomorrow. The Orlando pop-punk act has used a YouTube series to give fans a look into band members’ lives. “That old model pertained for decades,” Maile says. “For the first time in a long time, it doesn’t.”