{"id":39,"date":"2022-04-19T15:58:25","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T19:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/?page_id=39"},"modified":"2022-04-25T22:09:24","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T02:09:24","slug":"successful-artists-at-indie-labels","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/successful-artists-at-indie-labels\/","title":{"rendered":"Successful Artists who are Thriving at Indie Labels &#8211; And Have No Intentions of Leaving"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Clairo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pitchfork describes Clairo\u2019s \u201cImmunity\u201d as \u201cperfectly underproduced\u201d.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The album uses bold, unique drum sounds, and has a special sonic identity. Her hit song \u201cSofia&#8221; is a perfect example of her boldness. Its instrumental bridge with a crunchy, distorted synth solo had the crowd at its highest energy of the night at Clairo&#8217;s show in Richmond, Virginia this March, which we attended as preparation for this project. \u00a0Sofia<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8216;s chord progression is a 1-5-6-4, a basic progression, but the song still has an experimental, indie sound to it. Her vocals are soft and impactful, echoing over the crunchier drum sounds. Her music is often classified as &#8220;bedroom pop&#8221;, which doesn&#8217;t exactly align with &#8220;selling out&#8221; or major-label-stardom. &#8220;Sofia&#8221; talks of unrequited gay love, a subject that helps to define Clairo\u2019s artist brand and bring listeners closer to her personal story. In Clairo\u2019s case, risky decisions have paid off.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Clairo - Pretty Girl\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mngtcfcaVrI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><em>Clairo&#8217;s &#8220;Pretty Girl&#8221; Video<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chance the Rapper<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Chance is \u201cAnti-label, Pro-famous,\u201d as per his song \u201cBlessings\u201d. Chance <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> famous, and he did it without help from major labels. He&#8217;s currently #385 in the world on Spotify, and his record &#8220;Coloring Book&#8221; was an exclusive deal with Apple Music that earned over 50 million streams in the first week, charting 8th on the Billboard chart. It was the first record to chart from streaming alone. He did all of this without help from major labels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Chance turned down restrictive contracts from major labels because they didn\u2019t give him enough control over his music. He even went as far as threatening the big labels, saying, \u201cIf one more label try to stop me, there\u2019s gonna be some dread headed n***** in your lobby,\u201d in his hit \u201cNo Problem\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Chance the Rapper ft. 2 Chainz &amp; Lil Wayne - No Problem (Official Video)\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DVkkYlQNmbc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><em>Chance the Rapper&#8217;s &#8220;No Problem&#8221; Video<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When asked about his hatred for the big labels, Chance says he wants to keep his message and music grassroots. His team is almost entirely comprised of Chicago natives. One of Chance&#8217;s biggest goals is trying to uplift Chicago\u2019s youth; he even featured the Chicago Children\u2019s Choir on his song \u201cAll We Got\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clairo Pitchfork describes Clairo\u2019s \u201cImmunity\u201d as \u201cperfectly underproduced\u201d. The album uses bold, unique drum sounds, and has a special sonic identity. Her hit song \u201cSofia&#8221; is a perfect example of her boldness. Its instrumental bridge with a crunchy, distorted synth solo had the crowd at its highest energy of the night at Clairo&#8217;s show in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/successful-artists-at-indie-labels\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Successful Artists who are Thriving at Indie Labels &#8211; And Have No Intentions of Leaving<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5582,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"coauthors":[218692],"class_list":["post-39","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/39\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/mus226-sp22-03\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}