From studios to stores

Picture yourself in a rock band -- you've just spent weeks in a recording studio to finish your first album. Now you can just sit back and wait for the tours, hotel parties, groupies and money to come rolling in. You and your band mates have finally made it. You have become rock stars.\nBut is it really that easy? Not exactly. The road to rock star success is a bumpy one that is filled with an endless array of difficulties. One of these has become more prevalent throughout the years, but is still sometimes overlooked by consumers and rock star wannabes. It's the area of the music industry known as distribution. This is how unknown artists are able to get their music out to record stores and to be heard by prospective audiences. \nOver time, the distribution business has become increasingly competitive as distributors fight about limited rackspace in record stores. Once a band has signed a record deal and has completed an album, it must be distributed to the public. But this isn't as easy as it might sound, especially in the world of independent music.\nAndy Allen, president of the Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA), has been with the company since 1994, and has worked for Island and RCA for years before getting involved with the ADA.\n"The ADA is a distributor of key and important labels. We have a 40-person sales force working in catalog and informing retailers of available albums," Allen says. "To be distributed, a band must be signed by a label, and the label must be in a place to keep a band." \nMoney is also an integral component in the distribution industry. Record stores only have so much space to hold CDs, and this space can come at an expensive price. Many times, the independent labels without finances don't get the chance to showcase their artists on the prime rack space. \nSometimes this can cause a problem because many independently owned labels have a difficult time competing with the bigger labels. And occasionally, indie labels can even be bought out by the larger companies. \nBecause the indie labels don't have the financial backing that the major labels carry, they have to look to outside help. That's where distributors like the ADA come in. These companies can get an artist into the public eye by helping them not only get their albums into stores, but also give the artists radio airplay and set up interviews with media personalities. With enough determination and the right distributor, even the smallest label can get in the spotlight and showcase its artists. \n"Success can depend on the label's values and financial needs," says Tom Donahue, the owner of TD's CDs and LPs.\n"But these independently owned labels have gotten increasingly popular, since these smaller labels care less about money and more about the artist's growth," he says.\nYet, even though smaller independent labels can give an artist more room for artistic growth, they might also run the risk of being bought out themselves by a major label who might only be interested in the money to be made rather than the artistic ability of the band. Artists on an independent label might have more control over artistic growth, and receive more individual attention, but they also run the risk of having their label being bought out by the competition and possibly getting dropped from a better-known competitor.\n"Smaller labels can give the band more individual attention and focus more on musicality, whereas some of the larger labels will only be in it for the millions of dollars," says Jason Pierce, manager of Luna Music, a label and record store based in Indianapolis. \nThis is what makes companies like the ADA so important in the distribution industry. They specialize in independent labels, helping artists get the attention they need and making sure the smaller labels have a chance to showcase their artists and keep up with the competition. \nThey can give the underdogs more store rackspace and the opportunity to have their music heard by their prospective audiences. \nThe trend for independent artists to stay with their smaller labels has also become even more accepted with the major labels preferring the mainstream pop wonders, whose careers sometimes only last as long the trend that the audiences are following. The rebirth of teen pop artists during the past few years has made it harder for alternative artists to establish themselves with the major labels and audiences. \n"The ADA can help the indie artists by setting up programs, getting posters made and helping to get CDs in the larger franchise stores, as well as the smaller independently owned stores," Pierce says.\nIt takes more than talent and drive for independent bands to make it in the music industry. It's distributors like ADA that help the up-and-coming artists of tomorrow to make it past that final step and get the adequate rackspace, promotions and audience exposure needed for an artist to actually make their hard work pay off.