Image via Complex Original
Most of us can recall the struggle of inserting our favorite album into the CD player over and over, praying for that sweet sign of victory over its bountiful scratches. The promise of sweet, sweet music, indicated by those four elusive zeroes: “00:00.” Those days are long gone. We are deep inside a (somewhat) new moment in musical history, one that lets us bask in the never-skipping glory of streaming services, MP3s, wireless speakers, and curated playlists. The digital era is regal in its variety and accessibility, and record labels have evolved swiftly to keep pace with hungry listeners.
Instead of toiling over vinyl releases, restocks at mass music retailers, and fitting visuals onto the limited canvas of a CD jacket, they’ve gone digital. While almost every label out there is hip to the digital release, a new frontier of brave innovators is shedding the literal and figurative weight of the physical release. Digi labels, web labels, or netlabels, depending on your preferred nomenclature, are bubbling up around the world and all across the World Wide Web. With a focus on digital audio formats, most commonly MP3s, they’re equipped with barrier-breaking mentalities and realistic assessments of what the modern listener looks for when considering spending hard-earned money on music. Not to mention they’re efficient.
Death of the record label? Not for these thought leaders. Evolution says it’s all about survival of the fittest. We scoured the depths of the net to carve out five labels that are doing their digital cardio, pumping out sounds to the masses by the light of their MacBooks. From Soulection’s organic SoundCloud-fueled approach, to Russell Simmons and Steve Rifkind’s new brainchild All Def Digital, these are the five netlabels leading the pack. Get on board or risk getting left behind—a man and a Discman is a lonely existence in the 21st century.
Soulection
“L.A. is so competitive,” explains Joe Kay, the venerable head honcho at California’s resident beat music mainstay, Soulection. “In 2009, when Soulection was just an idea, I felt like there were a lot of artists getting missed out on. It was frustrating. I was finding artists on MySpace from different parts of the world, and I was like, ‘Why don’t we combine these in a spotlight.’ It was originally supposed to be just a music blog—a combination of visuals and music.”
Today, it’s much more than an idea. With a brick-and-mortar office in L.A.’s burgeoning Highland Park just down the hall from the iconic Stones Throw Records, Soulection’s small but energetic staff makes it a full-fledged engine. It’s home to some of the most exciting producers on the brink of eclipsing the underground. Seattle-based producer Sango put out one of the best instrumental series of the last five years, called Da Rocinha, on the label. While they continue to throw shows, create beautifully rich visuals and merchandise, and collaborate with Goldlink on their new Sound of Tomorrow series at the Echoplex, smaller names on the Soulection roster are primed to break.
All Def Digital
What happens when two of the most successful record label executives team up to do something completely out of the blue? You pay attention. All Def Digital is the brainchild of Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons and one of hip-hop’s earliest tastemakers, Steve Rifkind. Marketed as a YouTube-based music and comedy media generator, ADD has slowly been signing rising acts like Love Dollhouse and Niykee Heaton. After recently receiving a cool $5 million in funding, it’s safe to say that they’re set up for a major takeover. Why bother with pressing records when a majority of the momentum their artists have gained already comes straight from YouTube?
Awful Records
For those of you who haven’t heard Atlanta rapper Father’s monster smash “Look at Wrist,” stop reading this list right now. Open this link in a new tab, click play, and come back to us. This, along with sounds from OVO’s latest signee Makonnen are just a few of the releases ATL media company and record label Awful has to its name. While it's not explicitly marketed as a netlabel, the savvy and visual-oriented projects Awful released are yet to be packaged in anything physical. Awful’s put out an impressive number of buzzy releases during the second half of 2014. Most recently Ethereal dropped a new album called Cactus Jack. Born Obie Rudolph, the ATL rapper/producer is one of the team members responsible for helping get Awful off the ground. You can hear the camaraderie in the album’s features from both Father, the Wrist god himself, and rising weirdo rapper Rome Fortune. Definitely worth a digi download.
PC Music
PC Music is one of those children of the Internet age that isn’t concerned with helping outsiders understand its shiny, candy-coated, high-resolution allure. With a strictly policed net art aesthetic and quirky, bubbly pop music releases from artists like faceless London producer SOPHIE, A.G. Cook, and Hannah Diamond, they’re committed to maintaining an air of mystery. They don’t communicate with the press, but are still popping up on music sites and in mags across the board. From the glossy visuals, to the we-do-what-we-want attitude, it’s not hard to see why they’ve generated interest. Check out their bare-bones website and bask in the glory of Kim Laughton’s graphics and Hannah Diamond’s quirky pigtails.
Triple Pop
Kacey Musgraves is sort of like country music’s version of Ariana Grande. She tied Lorde and Taylor Swift for the most Grammy nods received by a woman in 2014. Katy Perry picked her up as an opener on the Prismatic Tour, along with Willie Nelson and Alison Krauss, and her most recent album, Same Trailer Different Park, is certified gold. Before all that, she started releasing music on Triple Pop. The dude who A&Red her, producer Monte Robinson, started the label from his spare bedroom in 2007 with only $300 to his name. They launched with one sole distribution contract with Apple, putting out a handful of releases and have since grown to sell over half-a-million digital downloads. You thought this netlabel stuff was the new new? Country caught on seven years ago. Catch up!