An unsigned artist, unsigned band or independent artist is a musician or musical group not under a contract with a record label. The terms are used in the music industry as a marketing technique. Bands that release their own material on self-published CDs can also be considered unsigned bands. Often unsigned bands primarily exist to perform at concerts. In more recent years, the Internet has helped promote the music of unsigned bands. Artists often post their music as MP3s on websites such as Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Myspace, PureVolume, GarageBand.com, Tunecrank.com and SoundClick. In 2016, the Unsigned Music Awards was established in the UK as the first ever televised international awards ceremony to champion artists without the backing of a record label. UK unsigned bands and musicians are able to use such services as The Unsigned Guide and to gather music industry contact names, phone numbers, websites and social media links, as well as information on how to get signed or market music independently. Song pitching websites, such as TAXI allow unsigned musicians to see which record labels are currently seeking new music. Further, companies like Sentric Music and the royalty payment service offered by Last.fm can help in generating income streams for unsigned bands.
History and current scene
Many unsigned artists used to sell their music and music-related merchandise without the financial support of a record label, while often seeking a recording contract through the recording of demos. Recently, the Internet has helped promote independent artistic material. Artists tend to post their music on websites such as MySpace, and ILike, and sometimes have their music played on podcast shows like Kooba Radio. In recent times, artists such as Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead, who once had major label record deals, have started to release their music independently. Various musicians remain independent in their beginning of their music career but later on get a record deal and continue as a signed musician. But this concept changed when major artists such as The Eagles and Nine Inch Nails became independent and parted their ways with record labels such as Interscope. Many services are offered to independent musicians like Cdbaby, Feiyr, Nimbit and Tunecore by which the artists can retain the copyrights of their songs and also deliver their music to various stores including iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, Napster, Spotify, etc.
Internet promotion
Internet promotion has been the key for some bands for getting popular. Bands like the Arctic Monkeys, Owl City, and solo artists like Lily Allen have gained popularity through Myspace, although the Arctic Monkeys did not even know what MySpace was, and claimed that fans made it for them. Unsigned bands have become more popular with Internet users and have been able to break into the mainstream charts. They are now finding many resources across the Internet to promote, market, and sell their music almost free of charge. Unsigned charts are now being promoted on almost all the underground music sites and has seen many of the domain owners spending large amounts of money on developing these charts to bring bands to them. A number of these are now additionally registered with the official charts. Blog sites have become popular, as they regularly feature reviews or interviews with unsigned artists. Other blog sites have offered helpful guidance and resources for new unsigned artists. Similar to bloggers, music curators including podcasts, DJs, and Youtube channels are all dedicated to finding quality new songs from unsigned artists for online audiences to discover. The music promotion site, Feature.fm, has emerged to allow artists to promote their music natively directly inside music streaming services.
Artists can also create their own record labels and sell their music under the label's imprint as well. Services such as Nimbit gives facilities for independent musicians to release their music independently as well as under a record label create by artist itself. Other efforts made in this field include Magnatune, an independent record label based in Berkeley, California, United States.
