OLIVIA EVITT
Record Labels
COMPLETED BY MYSELF
WHAT IS A RECORD LABEL?
A record label manages brands, or in this case; artists, and is responsible for the production, marketing and distribution associated with music recordings and/or videos.
UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP
Universal Music Group, more commonly known as UMG Recordings is a worldwide music corporation that currently operates as a subsidiary of French media conglomerate Vivendi. They have signed hundreds of worldwide successful artists, going back as far as The Beatles, ABBA and Prince to as recent as Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Lorde. Known as the "world's leading music company", UMG is a major label, with headquarters situated in Berlin and California. Due to signing such a range of successful artists, this record label targets a mass audience. It manages to stay up to date with more modern audiences by understanding how new technology refashions the world, and therefore they commit themselves to developing new services and products. The black and white logo sans serif logo is successfully simplistic, therefore showing that UMG are a professional company of whom understand that less is more in the modern world. The use of the globe as their logo shows that they appeal to a global audience, and are successful world wide.
CREATION RECORDS
Creation Records was a British independent record label founded in 1983 - therefore a minor label. However due to being deep in debt half of the company was sold to Sony Music in 1992, who launched the movement of Britpop after signing Oasis which went on to be hugely successful. Generally, this record label was signing rock artists, indie artists, post-punk and Britpop. Excluding Oasis, Creation Records signed fairly low key artists/bands compared to major record labels such as UMG Recordings. Examples include My Bloody Valentine and Biff Bang Pow! The logo used is fairly basic, however I would say it doesn't look as sleek and professional as others. Rather than using black and white, it shows colours from the England flag - therefore showing it's origin, allowing the label to be recognised and distinguished from others.
FOREFRONT RECORDS
Forefront Records is a division of the Universal Music Group and is a record label dedicated to contemporary Christian music and Christian rock. It was founded in 1987 and later sold to EMI in 1996 making it a part of the EMI Christian Music Group. The label appeals to a niche audience, due to focusing directly on Christian music - a very small minority of the music world. Forefront target their audience by creating CD compilations of all their signed artists' work. Artists signed by them include Toby Mac and Kevin Max. Again, the logo is minimal and simplistic, the use of deep colours throughout shows continuity and simplicity, connoting a sense of professionalism and realism.
INTERSCOPE RECORDS & BRIGHT ANTENNA RECORDS
Interscope Records and Bright Antenna Records are both minor record labels that sign artists from the pop genre, rock genre, but more importantly; indie. Interscope records is a division of UMG Recordings and signed hugely successful indie rock/pop band, The 1975 - a band I have looked in to countless times for inspiration for this year's media project. Bright Antenna Records is based in California however they also focus on targeting Britpop audiences. This record label signed The Wombats - another indie band that we have used to provide inspiration for our own music video. We are basing our music video upon a song from their third studio album (Glitterbug), Pink Lemonade. Conventionally, the logos used for both labels are black and white and simplistic. The minimalistic clean appearance of the logo creates a professional reflection of the record label. This seems to be conventional for labels that focus on indie pop/rock artists and music.