Indie Dispatches (Goes Walkabout): Australian Labels Feel the Industry Slump, While Foreign Artists Flourish
Australia's Music Industry in Flux
While some detractors talk disparagingly about Australia as being just like Southern California but with funny accents, there is no disputing that the ties run deep across the Pacific, especially when it comes to music. Turn on JJJ radio and you are likely to hear WAVVES; open the local free entertainment weekly mag and there are full-page adverts for upcoming live dates by Silversun Pickups along with a feature on Autolux and a large interview with Best Coast - the latter can also be heard on the airwaves with local Melbourne community alternative station RRR-FM featuring Crazy for You as their “album of the week”. Even L.A. newbies Foster the People are popping up on JJJ with their single “Pumped Up Kicks”. And you could be mistaken in thinking you were in West Hollywood with the list of recent and upcoming tours including Ben Kweller & Delta Spirit, New Pornographers, Low, Jonneine Zapata, Band of Skulls, Passion Pit and Broken Social Scene.
This is not to say that there isn’t a healthy local music community here, as witnessed by the emergence of Tame Impala in 2010 and the release of excellent records by the likes of Sally Seltmann and SXSW buzz act The Middle East, but dark clouds are appearing on the horizon. The global slump in music sales is hitting hard in Australia too. Recent weeks have seen two of the country’s major independent companies, Shock Records (who handles everything from Vagrant and Epitaph to Rough Trade), and Stomp (distributor for Sub Pop and others) facing liquidation and being taken over due to crippling debts, possibly even taking some of the distributed labels and artists’ money with them. Domestic CD prices in Australia are around $24 retail (in U.S. dollars that’s about 21 bucks!!!), and when compared with cheaper direct imports from retailers like Amazon, that makes difficult conditions for the indies. More consumer dollars seem to be going towards the slew of foreign touring artists and the large major label-funded companies (Modular, Dew Process, etc), with indies willing to invest in local talent becoming scarce.
Though it is not all grim news. A bright spot is the re-emergence of New Zealand’s premiere independent Flying Nun – with original founder Roger Shepherd reclaiming the label from Warner Music, there are plans to relaunch with a choice selection of new artists (NZ act Die! Die! Die! being one of the first) and a welcome revamp and reissue of their legendary catalog of releases by The Chills, The Clean and more. There are also a host of companies developing a hybrid of great international catalog combined with some of the best local releases. These include Remote Control, who along with achieving great success with the Beggars set of labels (including chart topping releases by the White Stripes and The xx album that is steadily heading towards gold status), also handle the marketing for a host of up-and-coming local acts such as Parades, who are also signed through their inhouse Dot Dash label. And plowing the same territory from Sydney are both Spunk, who handles a lot of the Merge catalog including Arcade Fire and Australian newcomer Bearhug, and Popfrenzy - home to Best Coast, HEALTH and The Drums as well as Antipodean acts like Songs and Surf City.
- Cool Hand Luke
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