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Frank Black Offers His Thoughts on the State of Record Labels

5:15 p.m. · July 23, 2009 · by Rachel Brodsky

It's no secret that the reign of the record label is over. With the long-standing popularity of independent record labels beginning in the '90's, and the more recent influx of downloading and buying music digitally, the record label empire has suffered from years of declining sales combined with a general lack of executive innovation.

Like a number of other prominent artists, Pixies frontman Frank Black has strong words regarding the current lineup of failing record labels. According to Black:

 "Labels are more concerned with their own survival than they are with the distribution of music and, of course, the irony of that is that if they would just concern themselves more with the distribution of music, a lot of their problems would solve themselves, I think. But because there's so much reticence, they're so nervous trying to protect what few assets they have left, they're so caught up in that that they can't really be vital or creative or interesting. They can't get out of their rut. They know it's over, but they don't know how to start up with a new fresh page."

And while he's not saying anything we don't already know, Black's theory fits into a number of other suit-wearing survival methods...health care, anyone? [Spinner]