Music Distributors

The Importance of Music Distributors

If you are beginning your career as a music artist, it is important to understand the ins and outs of the industry. The music industry does not revolve solely around signing under a record label, recording songs and performing onstage. One of the important matters to consider is music distribution.

Music distributors are the ones who take care of the distribution and allocation of an artist’s album. For simple analysis, we can compare the music distributor to a product wholesaler. The wholesaler gets the products from the manufacturing company and sells them to retail stores and outlets nationwide. The same task is done by the music distributor. Here are several types of music distributors.

•    Major music distributors. These are the distributors who cater the needs of the major record labels. Examples of such are Sony-BMG Distribution, Capitol-EMI Distribution and UNI Distribution.

•    Independent distributors. These are distributors of independent record labels. Some distribute records (albums) nationally, while others do so regionally. To further expand their reach, independent distributors from various regions form alliances.

•    One-stop distributors. These distributors cater to both major and independent record labels. They get the albums and sell them to independent stores, retail outlets and chain stores.

•    Rack-jobbers. These distributors also cater to both types of labels. However, instead of selling the music albums to retail stores, they establish outlets of their own. These outlets are the ones usually seen in department stores.

•    International distributors. These are the ones who market the records internationally. They work for both the major and independent labels.

•    Digital distributors. These are the distributors of music online. They supply the records to online music merchants such as iTunes and Napster. They sell not only the digital copies but physical copies too. Fans can either purchase the album and have it downloaded to their computer, or have the CD sent to their address.

•    Niche distributors. These are distributors who only accept songs and albums classified under their type of music. Some examples of the type of music Niche distributors cater to include country music, Christian music, alternative music and the likes.

 The album must be recorded in CDs and must have good quality. For artists or labels looking for music distributors, it is necessary that you have your own trademark name, a catalog number per release and a Universal Product Code. A catalog number is a unique code that begins with three letters followed by numbers. A Universal Product Code is a bar code that is usually placed in the back of the CD case. This helps the tracking of sales using Soundscan technology.

Before a music distributor accepts the records, they first check the salability of the record. The record has high salability if the artists is known, has previous albums that have been successful and other factors.