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Real Word million sellers Afro Celt Sound System R
eal World Records, the Wiltshire-based label and brain- child of Peter Gabriel, was founded in 1989, with more than 200 releases under its 25-year-old belt, from the early releases of master Sufi singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to recent ones from Welsh innovators 9Bach and Irish supergroup the Gloaming. Best selling artists on the label include Afro Celt Sound System, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Sheila Chandra, Geoffrey Oryema and Papa Wemba. The label fol- lowed on from Womad (established in 1982), with its complemen- tary “vision of presenting global sounds from whatever the genre, what ever the culture.”
“For a long time, I resisted the idea of a record company as it’s hard to be poacher and gamekeeper simultaneously. However, I relented when it was clear that many of the amazing artists com- ing to the early Womad festivals were unable to get any good offers to make a record or, for that matter, access to the best- sounding equipment. Thomas Brooman, Womad’s former Artistic Director, finally convinced me of the need to try a label,” recalls Amanda Jones.
From the outset, the label has espoused two key principles, firstly “exposing the lesser-heard music from across the globe” to wider audiences but also basing what they do on “a set of high- end artistic and production values.”
Much about today’s Real World remains unchanged. A secure foundation is provided with the commercial studio base, and the premise for Real World’s signings remains unaltered, Jones explains, “It’s about finding music which we think is exciting and exhilarating and we think other people will too.”
“Nowadays, less music is being controlled by record companies and more by the artists themselves,” reflects Jones. “Our relation- ship with artists is a partnership. We work co-operatively with musi- cians. Together we make decisions about how we make the record, how we market and promote, how much money we are going to invest. Artists these days are much more engaged with how the ‘industry’ (for want of a better word) works out there, and are able to engage in the process on a much more equal footing.”
For all labels, sales of physical CDs have of course suffered a massive decline in recent years. “I think that’s true of every genre across the board.” says Jones, “You only need to see how many sales it takes to hit a number five spot in an album chart or singles chart – they’re very small numbers. The days when we were selling a million Afro Celts albums are long gone. Our expectations of direct sales are very modest by comparison.”
“We have to consider carefully what is going to achieve some level of sales. This therefore affects the investment a business can make in the artist and the music: the amount of recording, promo- tion and marketing one can bring to the project. It’s all part of the bigger picture – how active the artist is, their fan base, how effec- tively they’re touring. It’s important for us to support artists in a whole range of different ways of enabling them to making money.”
For example, Real World is actively developing looking for opportunities to ‘place’ music in film, TV or advertising. Real World artists are featured in a number of mainstream films, from Gangs Of New York to Shrek II and TV shows including Sex And The City and The Wire.
The label is also keen to embrace all possibilities for making music available. “Music is being sold in more ways than ever before. We want to make sure it reaches an audience through every platform we possibly can – whether it’s on vinyl or download or a mobile phone – whatever – but we want it to sound as techni- cally brilliant as it can. And we want to make sure that we have a fair relationship with artists so that get paid fairly and properly for what they do!”
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