Independent music explained
Independent music is music that is released and distributed by a label that is not part of one of the 4 major groups, and it is the music the small label scene on this site is built around. The term is about who owns the record and how it reaches the listener, not about a sound, which is why independent music spans the world, folk, jam, and singer songwriter genres as widely as it spans the pop and the rock. A record is independent when the label that releases it owns its masters and answers to its audience rather than to a major's marketing department, and the small label is the company that makes that happen. This page explains what the term means, how it differs from the mainstream, and where the idea came from.
This is the explainer for the term: it defines independent music, sets it against the mainstream release, and traces the short history of the idea, so a listener knows what they are buying when they buy from the small label scene.
What independent music means
What independent music means is decided by the ownership of the record, and the test is a single question: does the label that released it belong to one of the 4 major groups? If the answer is no, the music is independent. The label owns the masters, it sets the catalogue, and it distributes the record through its own channel or through an independent distributor. The term covers a wide field, because the world, folk, jam, and singer songwriter music the small label scene releases is all independent, and so is a lot of the pop and the rock that the major does not touch. Independent music is the music that the small label releases and distributes, and the scene on this site is the corner of that field the site is about.
How it differs from the mainstream
How independent music differs from the mainstream release comes down to 3 things: the budget, the control, and the audience. The mainstream release is backed by a major's budget, which can press 500,000 copies and run a global campaign, and it is controlled by a marketing department that decides what gets pushed. The independent release is backed by a small label's budget, which presses a few thousand copies, and it is controlled by the label and the artist. The audience is the difference that matters to the listener: the mainstream release is made for the largest possible crowd, and the independent release is made for the crowd that already wants the music. The world, folk, jam, and singer songwriter music of the small label scene is the clearest example, because it is the music the mainstream does not stock at all. The difference is scale and control, and the listener chooses between the two shelves on the basis of which crowd the record is made for.
Where the idea came from
Where the idea came from is a history that runs from the early 20th century, when the first small labels pressed records in a city and sold them in a store before the major groups had a national system. The independent label was the default for most music for the first half of the century, and the major only became the center of the industry when it built the national distribution and the radio promotion. The independent idea survived in the corners the major left out, and it grew again in the 1970s and 1980s when the punk and the indie scene built a network of small labels that released the music the major would not touch. The small label scene on this site is a continuation of that network, and the independent music it releases is the music that line of labels still makes today. The idea is old, the network is standing, and the scene is the current end of it.
What a listener gets from the independent channel
What a listener gets from the independent channel is the music the mainstream does not carry, and it is the reason the small label scene exists. A listener who buys from the independent channel gets the world, folk, jam, and singer songwriter records the major does not stock, and they get them in the format the scene presses, the CD and the vinyl in a small run, and they get them through the independent distributor and the small label store. The listener also gets the catalogue, because the small label signs a family of artists and the listener who buys one record finds the rest of the family on the same shelf. The 3 things the independent channel gives the listener are the music, the format, and the catalogue, and they are the 3 things the mainstream channel does not give in the same way. The scene on this site is that channel, and the independent music it releases is the product of it.