Major labels not too shabby on the People's List…

In my last post while discussing privilege, I linked to an editorial that lambasts Pitchfork's recent People's List for being made up mostly of artists who are White and male. Plenty have discussed this aspect of it to death, so I won't. What I find interesting is that half the artists in the top ten debuted on a major label, including Radiohead, who occupy the first, second, and sixth slots. (The other three are the Strokes, Wilco, and Kanye West. Since Radiohead appears three times, there are only eight total.)

The fact that Radiohead makes the strongest showing by far is particularly noteworthy, given that few had any real faith in them when they were first signed. Remember, they were just a Nirvana clone like every other band of that era, all swept up by the major labels using the shotgun approach despised so much by indie rock kids to this day. And through the years, Radiohead themselves have tried hard to downplay this ignoble origin, along with the incredible resources afforded them because of it. But in doing so, they're doing us all a huge disservice, by obscuring the reality of where great music might come from and how it might be discovered.

The indie labels look for bands whose creative habits appear fully blossomed. This approach helps guard against nasty surprises, but it also ensures that a breakout phenomenon like Radiohead will probably never happen under their watch. And yet, Radiohead made the two best albums of the past fifteen years, according to the very subcultural demographic that most ardently supports these indie labels!

Isn't that weird? That's weird to me.