In an article in the New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones, focused some attention on how “independent” Arcade Fire actually is. Frere-Jones tells us that Arcade Fire owns its master recordings, but those recordings are licensed to Merge Records for the many functions a band cannot do on its own. The band has a manager, too, as it should.

Wrote Frere-Jones:

“Watching an independent band sell out the Garden and top the charts while compromising very little—Arcade Fire released eight different album covers for ‘The Suburbs’—is inspiring, but it isn’t a complete revolution. The band still has a manager and a label who work on its behalf, commercially and artistically. Scott Rodger, Arcade Fire’s manager, described the label’s role as ‘manufacturing and distribution—floating the expense, executing the marketing and retail plans that we have approved, and insuring that the music is available on all credible D.S.P.s,’ or digital service platforms.”

So what does this mean for you?  First, it shows that you need professionals to help do all of the business tasks that are necessary to promote, finance, record, sell, tour, and otherwise manage your music (like any other business). Second, it doesn’t necessarily mean you need a record label to do it although that certainly is what record labels are in business to do.  The important thing here is that Arcade Fire made a very nice deal for themselves by working with an Indie label.  They have been afforded certain freedoms that a major label certainly would not entertain such as the licensing of the master rather than out-right ownership and other business terms that can be inferred from the nature of the deal.

This just emphasizes the importance of (1) treating your band like a business, and (2) working with strong professionals who are not mired in the old ways of doing business and can strike creative artist friendly deals for their bands.

Bottom line, there is definitely something to be learned from Arcade Fire’s business structure.