Independent Record Label Research Project.

• Decaydance Records is a record label based out of New York City. Originally founded as an imprint of Fueled by Ramen, it is now an independent record label owned by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and partners.

• This label promotes artists like Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, The Academy is…, Cobra Starship and many more.

• Some of these artists like Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco & The Academy Is… are very well known and their other artists are fairly well known as well.

• Many radio stations like Radio 1 & Kerrang! radio will play these artists’ songs.

• Also many TV Stations support music from this label, mainly music channels like Kerrang! MTV, maybe even Scuzz and many more.

• As well as these a lot of websites will live stream music from this label, for example popular live streaming sites like Last FM and Spotify.

The Long Tail.

Fall Out Boy - 74,259,685 plays, 16,158,270 views.

Panic At The Disco - 45,684,625 plays, 3,436,825 views.

The Academy Is… - 19,133,559 plays, 622,431 views.

The Ready Set - 173,994 plays, 230,809 views.Hey Monday -

2,988,523 plays, 393,972 views.

Plays - Last FM

Views - YouTube

Ownership Research.

• Decaydance Records is owned by Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy and partners, however it was originally founded as an imprint of Fueled by Ramen but is now an independent record label.

• Decaydance Records is based out of New York City, USA.

• It is not certain how many people are employed by Decaydance Records, however they do offer internships at their New York office for work experience for students.

• You can also submit demos of your music to the label, for them to consider, on their website.

Production Research.

• Decaydance Records produce physical CD’s.• They also have their own studios for their artists

to record their music.• As well as this they have their own merchandise

website where they sell a range of products like hoodies, t-shirts, wristbands and music.

Marketing Research.• As the owner of Decaydance Records is in a well-known band

himself (Fall Out Boy) it’s easy for the label to promote their artists. For example their artists could be promoted by being a support band for Fall Out Boy.

• There are many other ways to promote their artists, for example on the labels MySpace or on other social networking sites.

• The label also has a YouTube channel, which features their artists videos for people to watch and other information about the label.

• The artists signed to the label also get some TV & press coverage. On the 22nd of April MTV interviewed Travie McCoy who is signed to Decaydance Records. He was also interviewed on Billboard.com about his solo career & other projects.

• As well as this the label also organises gigs to promote their artists. However even though they have organised a lot of gigs for them, all of these gigs are just based in America.

Distribution & Exchange Research.

• Major shops such as HMV stock CDs from this independent label and depending on how well known the artists are, supermarkets like Tesco’s and Morrisons sell them as well. The prices of these can vary, for example it depends if they are on sale, so they could be from as low as £3 or could be as high as £17.99. Although normally if it’s a high price it could be a double CD or include a live CD/DVD.

• You can also download and buy their singles off of iTunes, each track is normally no more than a £1 on ITunes.

• New media technology has improved their web presence and also has benefited the distribution of the labels artists, as now instead of just being able to buy CDs in shops you can now download or live stream tracks online. (For example, iTunes, Last FM, Spotify and people can watch artists’ videos on YouTube).

• So this new media technology has radically altered the way fans can access music, majorly because of the internet. However, piracy of music is becoming a bigger problem now as a lot of teenagers download tracks illegally, on programs such as Frostwire, and this has had a major negative effect on physical CD sales, so this has resulted in record labels & artists losing a lot money.