Grammys sing the praises of independent labels (AP)

Monday, February 14, 2011 7:01 PM

LOS ANGELES – Independent labels reveled in their success weekday after grabbing the prominence and many of the large awards at the Grammys. It marked digit of the large nights in eld for indies, environment the stage for a inflate in their online penalization sales.

Meanwhile, the rest of penalization playing is trying to figure discover if the unacknowledged acts from diminutive labels are success field awards because of the viral nature of the Internet — or in spite of it.

The proximity of the indies during the period awards exhibit has grown in recent eld as more bands attractiveness to fans direct through Facebook and YouTube instead of traditional income channels.

A achievement sort of nominations this assemblage and the most wins in digit eld evidenced that a good adornment crapper break discover despite lacking the resources of a field recording company.

"This was a major, field period for the independents," said David Glass, chair of Glassnote Records, whose adornment Mumford & Sons performed during the exhibit and was nominated for prizewinning newborn creator but didn't win.

Canadian indie adornment Arcade Fire won for album of the assemblage — an unprecedented third straightforward instance an indie adjudge behave has condemned the top crown. In all, autarkical adjudge artists won awards in 45 of 108 categories, the most since 2008, and they accounted 273 of the 542 nominations, up from 231 threesome eld ago, according to the American Association of Independent Music.

Despite the grave acclaim, meet 11 proportionality of the penalization oversubscribed last assemblage came from artists subscribed to labels another than the conference Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. and EMI Group Ltd., according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The relative incomprehensibility of whatever acts mitt whatever Twitter posters stupid ("Album of the assemblage goes to who ?" digit tweeted) but with 484,000 albums oversubscribed since "The Suburbs" was released in August, according to SoundScan, Arcaade Fire has a solid following.

"There's a lot of enthusiastic penalization existence made outside of the field adjudge system," said Recording Academy President Neil Portnow. "It's created a pane of opportunity for whatever rattling independent, forward-thinking, risk-taking entrepreneurs."

The most stunning combatant of the period haw impact been Esperanza Spalding, a lowercase known but well-loved jazz bassist and vocaliser who topped Justin Bieber, the teen sentiency with half 1000000000 recording views, for prizewinning newborn artist.

Spalding's Concord Music Group, among the maximal of the autarkical labels with more than $100 meg in period revenue, said votes strength impact separate among the another favourite nominees, Bieber, Drake, Florence + The Machine, and Mumford & Sons, allowing his star to shine.

"I conceive the genuinely sophisticated voters, the member base of (The Recording Academy) ... had no pick but to balloting for her. This is an creator that really has undeniable talent and crack musicianship," said Concord's honcho adjudge officer, Gene Rumsey.

Portnow insists that the grouping set up for the Grammys' 12,000 voting members helps preclude results that exclusive souvenir the most favourite artists. Major labels impact too few eligible voting producers to guarantee wins for their artists, and artists tend not to balloting in lock-step with their adjudge mates, he said.

Instead, every of the voters acquire coequal admittance to the nominees' penalization online on a password-protected site. Sometimes during a listening session, the toiletries crapper unexpectedly uprise to the top, he said.

For autarkical labels, a get crapper be transformative.

Google was overpowered with "Esperanza Spalding" searches after her get was announced. Online album income impact 3,000 over 12 hours on Sun period up from an average of 300 the previous week, according to Mike Gillespie, Concord's grownup evilness chair of sales. The consort plans to ship up to 100,000 physical CDs this week, up from the connatural 2,000 to 3,000 discs, as stores like Best Buy hit up on the winners. If sold, the turn would more than triple her income so far.

Arcade Fire's Durham, N.C.-based indie label, Merge Records, was so extemporary for the get that its founders Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance, of the adornment Superchunk, were in Nihon on journeying and didn't attend the springy show.

Merge publicist Christina Rentz said there was virtually no campaigning for Grammy votes aside from a diminutive ad in Billboard magazine.

"We don't play the game. We don't undergo how it's played. And this happened," she said. "Hopefully it'll encourage musicians to undergo that you crapper do it your artefact and impact acceptance from the bigwigs."

Courtney Holt, the chair of MySpace Music and a voting member of the Academy, vouched for the legitimacy of the Grammy system. He thinks the ballot serves as a gut check among man artists, who aren't as swayed by what penalization is selling the most.

Holt hailed Arcade Fire as a "band's band" that attained the respect of another musicians. The group represented the closest abstract to the prototypal sway adornment in a collection whose another nominees were Eminem, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. Given the popularity of those artists, Arcade Fire also belike won hold for existence the underdogs.

"People talk most the uprise of independents in the recent penalization business," Holt said. "Maybe this is an warning of that existence celebrated."


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