All the industry has been abuzz with musings about the future of the standard record label…”Is this the beginning of the end?” has been the question everyone seems to be asking.  Well, actually it started the day that someone first figured out how to send their friends music files over the internet, it has just taken awhile to catch on.  While it will still take some time to make this movement a revolution of the system, major bands adopting variable pricing and direct sales shows that the clock is ticking for labels to catch up to the consumer market’s demands.

Today, this got a huge boost: Madonna has announced that she will be releasing 3 studio albums, promoting concert tours, and licensing merchandise through Live Nation, rather than a record label.  While this is still short of direct-to-the-consumer sales, it still shows that big names do not need labels to promote sales.  In fact, in Live Nation’s ‘About Us‘ section, the company doesn’t even say a word about album promotion:

 Live Nation is the world’s largest live music company. Our mission is to inspire passion for live music around the world. We are the largest promoter of live concerts in the world, the second-largest entertainment venue management company and have a rapidly growing online presence.

I read this first on TechCrunch, and I can’t summarize this any better than they have written in their headline: “And the Walls Came Tumbling Down…”