22 MusicWeek 14.09.12 INTERVIEWDANIEL MILLER
www.musicweek.com
Back in 1978, Daniel Miller didn’t think he was creating a record company for anyone other than his own musical alias. Mute would go on to become one of the most influential labels in the world The synth-heavy sound of TVOD/Warm
LABELS BY TIM INGHAM
M
usician records tunes in bedroom. Musician pays distributor to give them to the world. Musician earns cash.
It’s the so-called disruptive business model of
our age. Apparently, nobody needs labels anymore. Going cap in hand to a record company is a waste of time in the era of internet metamorphosis. All of this is a familiar cycle to Daniel Miller.
He’s been through the DIY revolution before – and he didn’t need iTunes to navigate it, either. Thirty-four years ago, Miller’s own bedroom
musical experiment, The Normal, paid Rough Trade a few bob to get its record noticed.
ABOVE
Mute witness: Daniel Miller founded Mute in 1978, after he recorded his own musical experiment, The Normal (top right) in his bedroom. The rest is history – from the likes of Erasure (middle) to Yeasayer (bottom)
Leatherette was a cult hit. It carried The Normal’s name, but Miller’s mark: Mute. Without realising it, the now-hugely successful businessman had set into motion one of the world’s most treasured independent record companies. “I just wanted to put out my own music; I didn’t want to start a record label,” he tells Music Week. “We really were at the forefront of what so many people are doing now – making records in their bedrooms and releasing them online.” Just as well for cultural enrichment’s sake that Mute blossomed. Alongside a string of cultish boundary pushers over the years, Miller’s label has boasted notable commercial successes, from Depeche Mode to Goldfrapp, Erasure, Moby and
Nick Cave. Even these household names have never crept away from their identity or verve for creative experimentation; a hallmark of acts on Mute through the ages. It’s not only visionary artists that Mute has given to the world; its own imprints such as Novamute, Rhythm King and Liberation Technologies have allowed the label to nurture and distribute acts even further away from mainstream chart normalcy, and become all the more loved for it.
A deep-set cornerstone of Mute is the independent nature of the company. Born from one man’s adoration of electronic music, the firm remained fully owned by Miller for 24 years until 2002, when EMI swooped for the company in a £23m deal. Miller continued to manage the
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68