The Transmissions of Factory Records
A Celebration of One of Indie's Legendary Labels
Any music fan that keeps up with current events knows the word indie and has probably used it to classify a band or a song at some point. Indie has become one of the great musical buzzwords of recent times. It literally refers to music that is produced by small record labels that lack the ability to distribute and advertise in the volume that larger companies with greater economic clout can afford to.
However, this is generally not what is meant by indie. The title is used more often used to identify music that for some reason is at odds with the mainstream. It is a wide net that applies to everything from low fidelity folk to noise rock, and for that reason it is a lazy tag to slap onto an artist. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly inaccurate as independent label artists like MGMT and Grizzly Bear have managed to get mainstream exposure and get the dreaded music biz beast to work for them.
God Save The Major Labels: Punk's Impact Lasting Impact on the Record Industry
A time long ago, in a galaxy far, far away independent labels were light years removed from their monetarily endowed peers. In fact, they didn’t even exist in a familiar form until the late 1970s. The punk movement didn’t just create an army of angry kids with guitars; it also spawned a new ethos which held that anyone that with something to say and enough ambition that they could achieve their vision.
This message reached Granada Television journalist Tony Wilson in June, 1976 at a Sex Pistols concert. The concert was the infamous Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall show that forty people attended, many of whom would go on to careers in music. From there Wilson went on to present the show “So it Goes”, a music show featuring the Pistols and many other bands in the fledgling punk scene that ran from 1976 to 1977.
Wilson decided to expand from there, and he and Alan Erasmus went on to put on a series of performances by Manchester bands at a local club. The name of the club, Factory, would become one of the most important names in music for years to come.
The Birth of An Era: Factory Opens its Doors
Factory records started in earnest in 1978, a year removed from the punk explosion and at just the right time to catch the many acts it inspired. Through the late 1970s and early 1980s the label seemed to have impeccable timing, seizing each new trend in music as it struck England.
In the late 1970s the label held an impressive list of inventive post-punk acts including Joy Division, A Certain Ratio, and The Durutti Column. Moving into the 1980s the remnants of Joy Division formed the synthpop juggernaut New Order, whose pulsating tunes put countless bodies on the dance floor. In the late 80s the Happy Mondays were a cornerstone of the ecstasy-fueled rave scene.
The music Factory produced certainly leaves a great legacy, but the label’s business model and management style are perhaps its greatest contribution. Factory was founded as a partnership between four men: Wilson, producer Martin Hannett, artist Peter Saville, and manager Alan Erasmus. Each partner, especially the creative team Saville and Hannett, contributed in a distinctive way. Hannett’s unmistakably cavernous production gave Joy Division its trademark sound while Saville created groundbreaking artwork for Factory’s releases. Each member of the team was a visionary, giving Factory a distinct image.
An essential part of Factory’s image was the manner in which it handled artists. The label granted each act complete creative control, a rarity then and now. It also gave the rights to all recordings to the artists themselves rather than holding them, an unprecedented and totally unselfish move. Factory always put its artists first, refusing to stifle or swindle them for its own gain.
Factory records, for all its innovations and contributions to the musical landscape, deserved a fairytale ending straight out of a Disney movie. However, this was not to be. The label lost a great deal of money through a failed nightclub and staple acts New Order and The Happy Mondays going far over budget in the studio. Ironically Factory’s final blow was the fact that it could not be bought out by London records because the label did not own its artists’ back catalogues. And so in 1992 Factory declared bankruptcy, leaving behind a monstrous footprint in rock history.
Ceremony: Recognizing a True Pioneer
Currently independent record labels are a fixture in rock music. Sometimes so much so that sometimes their output is barely discernable from major labels, a fact that reflects indie’s increasingly prominent position in record production.
But there was once a time in the good old days when men were men and Factory records proved that there was a way to produce great music without reverting to business as usual.
An iconic trademark for an iconic label
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