Prince's New Record Deal

We tend to think of record labels not changing much even in the face of the major paradigm shift that is Music 3.0, but while that may hold true for the major labels, there are a few that are forward thinking. Take Kobalt Music, for instance, which is an independent publishing company that launched their version of a label last year with the idea of giving control back to the artist, allowing them to not only maintain ownership of their work, but when and how it's made available as well.

The latest to sign a deal with Kobalt is superstar Prince, who joins the likes of Dave Grohl, Paul McCartney, Dave Stewart and Eddie Veder (among others) who've decided that this is the way to go in the future. Of course Prince is all about control, even changing his name to that unpronounceable symbol in order to get out from under the clutches of his deal with Warner Bros.

One of the things that he gets in the new Kobalt deal is access to their new software that closely monitors the streaming world, thereby increasing the royalties. Every artist and songwriter is concerned about streaming and what it will do to their career, so any way to get a foot up is attractive, which is why Kobalt seems to be making the splash that it is at the moment.

It's still to be determined just how successful their software tools actually will be, but there's a lot of music heavyweights that are convinced that Kobalt has something they need. You'll hear more about them in the future.

----------------------------------

Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.