I wish Jeff Leeds would have asked Steve Gottlieb, chief of TVT Records, to also comment on who was responsible for promoting MOOD and how could they fail so miserably? Anyway, nice timely article on the empowerment of indie labels, primarily through the internet. You can read the full article at the nytimes site. Link

The Net Is a Boon For Indie Labels
By JEFF LEEDS
Even as the recording industry staggers through another year of declining sales over all, there are new signs that a democratization of music made possible by the Internet is shifting the industry’s balance of power.

Exploiting online message boards, music blogs and social networks, independent music companies are making big advances at the expense of the four global music conglomerates, whose established business model of blockbuster hits promoted through radio airplay now looks increasingly outdated.

CD and digital album sales so far this year are down 8 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen SoundScan data. And while sales of digital tracks through services like iTunes have risen 150 percent, to well over 320 million songs this year, that rise is not enough to offset the plunge in album sales. Overall sales are down less than 5 percent if the digital singles are bundled into units of 10 and counted as albums, according to estimates by Billboard magazine.