I’ll make my music boring, I’ll play my music slow
I ain’t no artist; I’m a businessman
No ideas of my own
I won’t offend or rock the boat
Just sex and drugs and rock and roll
– Dead Kennedys, “Pull My Strings”
Standing on the stage of the Bay Area 1980 Music Awards, the Dead Kennedys, one of the most controversial and impactful punk bands of the ’70s and ’80s, began to play the introduction to their most popular song, “California Über Alles.” Invited by the event organizers to lend the awards show some “new wave credibility”, the band stood far apart from the event crowd, mostly made up of record executives and musicians signed to large labels. Suddenly stopping their song, Dead Kennedys lead singer, Jello Biafra, jokingly declared, “We’ve gotta prove we’re adults now. We’re not a punk rock band, we’re a new wave band!” The Dead Kennedys then launched into a nearly six-minute-long musical attack on the modern record industry, a song named “Pull My Strings”. With parodies of popular music, references to embarrassing industry scandals, and gleeful insistence that the crowd full of music industry titans sing along with them, the one-time performance of the song served not only as a rejection of the awards show, but the massive-scale labels which dominated the event at large.
Though this moment stands apart due to its dramatic nature, it is by no means unique. Artists, especially in the 1970s and onward, have engaged in conflicts challenging established record labels, producers, and industry norms. This group of musicians includes punk rockers such as the Dead Kennedys, pioneers of hip-hop, and even some of the most prominent country stars. These artists, all united by a shared drive to move beyond the musical prospects offered by the industry, demonstrated new ways to break creative boundaries and achieve personal success.
Concerning the musical movement that birthed the Dead Kennedys themselves, punk rock has been defined greatly in part by conflict with the dominant structures of the recording industry. One of the earliest punk bands, the Sex Pistols, waged an infamous conflict with their music label, EMI Records. In 1975, the Sex Pistols, known for their vulgar performances and antics, stood at the head of the British Punk movement, and are still considered one of the founders of punk itself. The following year, EMI Records, one of the predominant record labels in the United Kingdom, signed the Sex Pistols to a two-year contract. The deal was met with immediate challenges, with factory employees at EMI’s record pressing plant refusing to even handle the band’s provocative single, “Anarchy in the UK,” on account of its provocative title and lyrics. Any residual goodwill between the two parties then came to an explosive end just three months into the contract, with the Sex Pistols’ widely publicized interview on the Today programme. In an expletive-filled confrontation on live TV, the Sex Pistols effectively destroyed interviewer Bill Grundy’s career with the highly restrictive BBC, and generated a tsunami of controversy so intense it both shattered the band’s relationship with EMI and laid the seeds for the British punk movement altogether. The final chapter in the conflict was the aptly titled song EMI, on the Sex Pistols’ first album. The song’s lyrics openly mocked EMI, declaring that the label only signed the Sex Pistols in order to cash in on the growing punk scene. The Sex Pistols further accused EMI of believing the band’s rebellious ethos was merely a marketing facade, signing them with the intention of having the band play more “popular” and “mainstream” music, as seen in the lyrics below.
And you thought that we were faking
That we were all just moneymaking
You do not believe we’re for real
Or you would lose your cheap appeal?
Don’t you judge a book just by the cover
Unless you cover just another
And blind acceptance is a sign
Of stupid fools who stand in line
Like
EMI
EMI
EMI, hahaha
– Sex Pistols, “EMI”
Punk rock is well known not only for its rejection of the conventional music industry but also for the creation of alternative spaces to record, perform, and celebrate its rebellious music. From making their own recording studios, pressing their own records, and managing their own tours, punk rockers created a whole new way of creating music in a time when major record labels controlled both how and why music was made. This series of practices, known as D.I.Y. or Do It Yourself, has been exhibited perhaps best in the punk genre by the band Fugazi.
While their written material itself didn’t touch on their rejection of mainstream music labels, instead focusing on other varied issues, Fugazi was known well as a band that stood by the D.I.Y. ethos. The Washington Post wrote about the band in 1993, discussing what made them so unique in the music industry of the time. “It only plays shows where age IDs are not required. It charges a $5 admission to its shows, always. It will never, ever sign with a major record label.” Putting aside the clearest rejection of the band’s departure from labels, the band’s management of its shows embodied a supreme commitment to making music accessible for all. By forgoing age restrictions and high ticket prices, Fugazi ensured their music could be heard by all their fans, while also demonstrating how the band’s motivations for creating music differed from the mainstream industry as well. This essential difference was exemplified through Dischord Records, the band’s own independent music label founded by Fugazi’s frontman, Ian MacKaye.
Fugazi used the infrastructure of Dischord Records to record not only their own music, but that of other punk and hardcore artists as well, all the while forgoing traditional label practices in order to best support the artists themselves. They were known for avoiding legal contracts in lieu of handshake agreements, granting musicians full artistic control, and channeling revenue from releases primarily to their artists in order to put out even more music. These practices again fell in line with the core of Fugazi’s philosophy, as summarized by MacKaye himself in a 2008 interview. “…[W]e were never thinking about profit. We were just thinking about making records.” This prioritization of the simple creation of music over the profit motive helped define not only punk rock, but also D.I.Y. practices in music entirely.
Rejection of music labels through D.I.Y. has been exhibited both in punk rock, and countless other genres such as hip-hop. Within the genre and cultural movement, old and new artists diverged from the status quo sound of their times. As the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts wrote of the earliest days of hip-hop, “It was a code that has flowed through Hip-Hop ever since: 1) Use skills and whatever resources are available to create something new and cool; 2) Emulate and imitate the genius of others but inject personal style until the freshness glows.” The use of non-traditional resources such as turntables to both remix existing materials and create new sound entirely represented a method of creation entirely separate from music labels at the very beginning of hip-hop.
This divergence from the status quo industry came not just from the manner in which hip-hop records were made. Celebrated music journalist, producer, and drummer of The Roots, Questlove, writes in Vulture of how sharply hip-hop diverged from the dominant label brand of the time, disco. For Questlove, while disco’s highly formulaic structure prioritized the label over the artist, “Hip-hop happened, largely, in reaction to disco. A half-decade earlier, punk had declared classic rock a bloated corpse and then killed it. Hip-hop was in a similar position with regard to disco.” This comparison to punk demonstrates not only hip-hop’s initial divergence from the dominant musical culture, but also the rebellion against label-centric music broadly that both punk and hip-hop aligned themselves with.
Even as hip-hop entered the mainstream, conflict with record labels still proved indicative of many of its most prominent artists. A Tribe Called Quest, whose name inspired Questlove’s own and who gained prominence and admiration for their usage of neo-soul and jazz rap, leveraged their socially conscious lyrics to speak on the issue. One such politically charged verse in their song Check the Rhime proves a clear incarnation of this divide.
Well, it’s kinda simple, just remain your own
Or you’ll be crazy, sad and alone
Industry rule number four-thousand-and-eighty
Record company people are shady
– A Tribe Called Quest, “Check the Rhime”
Industry Rule #4,080 itself became a facet of hip-hop, a refrain on the mistreatment of artists by labels, common in magazines and websites from the 90’s to the current decade. The sentiment and conflict epitomized by the now famous line similarly has persisted, as Megan Thee Stallion’s conflict with 1501 Certified Entertainment clearly shows. Beginning in 2020, the rapper sued her label with allegations that 1501 had been both preventing her releasing music, and harassing her on social media. This suit, although settled out of court, proved the potency of legal power when leveraged by artists against labels in the modern era. In 2023, Megan Thee Stallion announced her own, self-funded album, promising her next work would be “straight from Megan Thee Stallion’s brain, Megan Thee Stallion’s wallet”, as per Rolling Stone. With both artistic and financial control, she published her now bestselling, self-titled album, Megan, with her own independent label, Hot Girl Productions. Carrying on the proud tradition of resistance to music labels and Do It Yourself practices, Megan shows the continued desire for freedom held by artists in modern day.
This artistic demand for creative freedom has been a tool of musicians spanning multiple genres, with the musical movement of Outlaw country being one of the most potent examples. Outlaw country was formed as a rebellion against what had become known as the “Nashville sound”, or “countrypolitan”, a formulaic subgenre of country music. It had replaced the folk instruments and gritty lyrics of honky-tonk country, with polished crooning and smooth string instruments, with the aim of appealing to a wider and more profitable audience. Chet Atkins, himself one of the forefathers of the countrypolitan genre, was accredited with, upon being asked to describe the Nashville sound, shaking the loose change in his pocket and replying “It’s the sound of money.”
In the face of a recording industry which denied creative autonomy to country artists through a stream of heavily produced records, a group of musicians on the fringes of the genre forged Outlaw country. These artists, originally side-acts, outcasts, and has-beens, now rate amongst some of the most beloved country artists, such as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Kris Kristofferson. Their critique of the Nashville country music of the time proves in fact similar to Questlove’s critique of disco music, with both mainstream genres forefronting production teams and glamorous marketing over the artists themselves. Such criticisms prove clear in Waylon Jennings’s song, Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way.
Rhinestone suits and new shiny cars
It’s been the same way for years
We need to change
– Waylon Jennings, “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way”
Perhaps one of the most significant triumphs of the Outlaw movement came with the acclaimed 1976 album, Wanted! The Outlaws. The compilation album forefronted songs incorporating the fiddles, steel guitars, and banjos that the Nashville sound had dismissed in its appeal to a popular audience. Songs such as Honky Tonk Heroes and My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys venerated the rugged individualism of the outlaw way of life, which had just as much been rejected by Nashville in lieu of a pop-star lifestyle. Rolling Stone praised the album as being “raucous, rebellious and decidedly uninterested in the blend of pop and country that was storming the charts at the time…” Ironically, in its rejection of appeal to the mainstream, Wanted! The Outlaws achieved groundbreaking commercial success, becoming the first country album to ever be certified platinum. The success of this album signalled to both artists and labels the power of music which forefronts the musicians and their lived experiences.
The conflict between the creators of music; the artists, and those with the economic means to mass produce their works; the labels, has been an essential struggle of the music industry, with countless splits between artists and their labels being defined by the question: Is music an art or a business? This war for the soul of music, ignited in the counter cultural throes of the 70’s and continuing into modern day, has yet to be settled. While many may not themselves be artists, it is the imperative of every fan of the musical medium to support those independent musicians struggling for recognition and creative freedom. Doing so ensures a musical industry which innovates, inspires, and creates aimed not at the wallet, but the ear.
