What is a Recording Artist?

What is a Recording Artist?

Why We Wrote This Guide
Recording artists and composers create the foundations of the music industry: compositions and recordings. Gaining insight into recording artists and composers' fundamental positions within the music business is necessary to understand the detailed inner workings of the music industry. We wrote this guide in order to provide readers with a detailed description of what a recording artist is, what they do, and how they make money.
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Who This Guide Is For
Individuals who want to become recording artists or wish to work with one
Beginners in the business or music lovers looking to learn the fundamentals of the industry
Artists signed to labels
Indie recording artists wanting to learn best practices
Contents
What is a Recording Artist?
History of Recording Artists
Royalties
Recording Contracts
What is a Recording Artist?
In the music business, a recording artist is a person that performs songs in a studio-like setting for the purpose of recording songs and releasing them to the public. A recording artist can be a singular individual, a band, or even a massive symphony. A recording artist can also be a songwriter. However, recording artists often perform and record songs that they did not write themselves.
History of Recording Artists
The concept of a recording artist is described in more detail within our guide, ``What is a Sound Recording?”, along with a mass of information explaining early recording technologies. The earliest recording mechanisms made it difficult to record full bands.
By the 1940s, technology had advanced enough to allow electrical recording, stereophonic sound recording, and multi-tracking. As technology advanced, more recording artists were signed to labels and more variety could be heard in recordings. For the majority of the record industry’s lifetime, record labels were the only way for artists to get their music recorded, manufactured and sold. Nowadays, however, virtually anyone can begin a career as an amateur recording artist.
Royalties
When an artist records and distributes a song they did not write, they must first obtain a license to do so from the owner of the composition. By doing so, they are allowed to make their recording of the song in exchange for mechanical royalties paid to the publisher and composer. As recording artists do not receive these mechanical royalties, they typically collect portions of the royalties collected by the record label for sales of the recording. Artists do, however, receive payments from other types of licenses such as sync and sound recording performances from SoundExchange. In sync deals, a one-time fee is usually negotiated, and the artist receives a cut of this money. SoundExchange, on the other hand, is effectively a PRO for sound recordings. The organization collects and distributes performance royalties from non-interactive* digital streaming services like Sirius XM and Pandora.
*Non-interactive means that the listener doesn’t choose which songs they want to listen to, as in the case of Apple Music, Spotify, or YouTube. Check out our guide on the subject here.
Recording Contracts
A recording contract is a legal agreement that is most often made between a recording artist and a record label. Typically, the label is agreeing to promote and work with the artist and the artist is agreeing to create recordings for the label. There is no real standard for what details and agreements are written in a recording contract. In order to best understand recording contracts, one should seek to understand the various components that can be found within them.
See our guide to music industry contracts here.
Range of Rights
This topic is one of the most crucial topics covered in standard recording contracts. Essentially, it outlines what rights are being transferred from the recording artist to the record label. Depending on the clout of the artist, they may be able to negotiate more favorable items in their contracts. Established artists with track records of large sales numbers and widespread popularity have much more bargaining power in their contract negotiations with record labels.
Term
The term in a recording contract refers to the length of the agreement being made. Typically, terms are outlined in one of three ways.
Artists will agree to a term based upon years
Example: I agree to create products for this company for 2 years.
Artists will agree to a term based upon their output

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