GERTRUDA DAMBRAUSKAITE
A2 Media Portfolio
Record Label and Distributing Music
Elektra
Founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an important role in the development of contemporary folk music and rock music between the 1950s and 1970s. Some of the artists in Elektra: Tracy Chapman, Cee-Lo Green and Bruno Mars.
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During the Fifties and early Sixties, the label concentrated on folk music recordings, releasing a number of best-selling albums by Theodore Bikel, Ed McCurdy, Oscar Brand, and Judy Collins. In 1965, Elektra briefly joint with Survey Music called Bounty Records which was Elektra's first foray into pop music. The most notable signing for Bounty was the Paul Butterfield Band who was moved over to Elektra when Bounty went out of business. This gained recognition in the music industry by being one of the first labels to sign up leading acts from the new wave of American psychedelic rock of 1966–1967.
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I believe this record label would be the best option for our artist because they have worked with many different artists from different genres.
Spotify
Since our artist is not signed with a record label she will need to contact artist aggregators such as: Tunecore, CDBaby, EMU Bands, Record Union or Spinnup that will take care of the licensing and distribution of her music and will also administer the royalty payments that accrue from her streams on Spotify. However, there is usually a small fee or percentage cut involved in using these services.
iTunes
The process for putting songs on iTunes is similar as for Spotify however, further she would need The Universal Product Code (UPC) that uniquely identifies an album and helps to ensure she’s marketing the right album. The International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) uniquely identifies individual songs. Furthermore, a US Tax ID is required as part of the iTunes Connect sign-up and authentication process. This requirement also applies to providers not based in the US which she is not and the iTunes website provides link to get it.