In this year’s Grammy Awards, which took place in February, Chappell Roan – a 27 years old female singer, born in Missouri, United States – won the category ‘Best New Artist’, after a long period of 10 years in the music industry.
During her speech, Chappell sparked a discussion regarding artists’ rights and, mostly, their mental and physical health, specially cause record labels are known for their abuse of power over new artists – Roan is an exemple of that, as well as others, now, respected singers.
Remember the speech
Chappell started her career at 17, still as a minor. After getting a contract with Atlantic Records and launching her very first EP, School Nights, the pandemic hit the world, and Roan got dropped off – all of this in a period of uncertainty in the whole world.
As a disclaimer, the United States has a working policy focused on quality: if you work hard, you get paid what you’ve worked for – this also applies to record labels and upcoming artists. How to overcome that situation if you can’t provide the results they’re waiting for? It’s unpredictable whether someone is getting famous or not, and that directly affects these artists’ life and financial condition.
At the Grammys, she said: “I got signed so young – as a minor. When I got dropped [in 2020], I had zero job experience under my belt, and like most people, I had quite a difficult time finding a job in the pandemic and [could not] afford insurance. It was devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and dehumanized”.
“If my label had prioritized it, I could have been provided care by a company I was giving everything to. Record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection”, she added.
In 2023, Chappell signed with Dan Nigro‘s label, Amusement Records, and that’s when her career took off. Her singles, “HOT TO GO!” and “Good Luck, Babe!” became famous and made her debut album ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess’ known all over the world.
After the speech, a lot of artists started to open their eyes and support Chappell’s speech, as she revealed to donating $25,000.00 to independent artists’ funds. This made not only famous people pay more attention, but also everybody involved in the music industry.
Other examples
Chappell found, fortunately, her “happy” ending. Other artists have similar stories as her when it comes to bad experiences with record labels. Taylor Swift, now one of the biggest popstars in the world, is someone who almost lost her entire career due to her ex-producer selling all of her songs without copyrighting Taylor in her own albums – and all of this because Swift also signed as a minor, not knowing any better.
She, then, had the idea of re-recording her lost songs, and it worked out! Taylor now has 4 out of 6 albums re-recorded, and added new songs to them. To indicate her rights, she added “(Taylor’s Version)” to the songs, proving they all are owned by her.
Another exemple of abuse of power in record labels is Cher Lloyd, the owner of the hit “Want U Back”, of 2012. Cher, during an interview, said that the label she was in years back formally asked her to “seduce” Justin Bieber, the it boy at that time, in order to launch her career. “Was I not good enough to invest in that you’d rather use me in that way?”, she said.
But, what makes record labels treat their artists like this?
Variety Magazine explained that an artist signs a contract and receives an advance of their future earnings, essentially a loan. While terms vary, they typically cover recording, manufacturing, and promotion costs of their songs. These expenses can lead to significant debt if the advance isn’t recouped, and if that happens, they will essentially ‘drop’ the artists – but it’s not that simple.
In the contracts, record labels should provide health and life insurance via an arrangement those labels have with SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) that has existed since 1952, but when it comes to upcoming artists, that is mainly not what happens. Chappell herself, and the other artists named above, are an example of that, but there are many other artists who still didn’t have the opportunity to overcome it.
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The article above was edited by Manuela Miniguini.
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