Existential question: in an era where selling albums is no longer the music industry’s primary source of revenue and technological advances allow artists to produce their own recordings, market them and ensure their distribution, what is the purpose of record labels? To reflect on their role in 2024, The Duty brought together three of their directors, each of whom has a birthday to celebrate this fall: Philippe Archambault of Audiogram, Jean-Christian Aubry of Bonsound and Alexandre Archambault of Bonbonbon.
On September 4, Audiogram organized an aperitif in its offices in Old Montreal to celebrate its 40th anniversary.e anniversary. About ten days ago, the young Bonbonbon box treated itself to an evening of tacos and music at the Festival de musique émergente en Abitibi-Témiscamingue to mark its 5e year of activities. Next month, it will be Bonsound’s turn to celebrate 20 years of musical pioneering.
As we talk in Audiogram’s new offices, Philippe Archambault notes this detail: the three companies were born during “crises.” For Audiogram, it was the economic recession that post-referendum Quebec was plunged into in the 1980s, leading to the disengagement of major American record labels from the local market. Bonsound, notes Jean-Christian Aubry, was born during the Napster craze, which precipitated the fall in record revenues. Bonbonbon, for its part, took off in the middle of a pandemic.
“As far as we are concerned at Bonsound, the identity of label remains the central element of our trademark. It is from this that the branding of the company and our artists is built,” explains Jean-Christian Aubry, director of the label and operations, emphasizing that the company he co-founded has, since its first steps in 2004, touched on management, production and booking of shows. Since 2017, she has also opened Les éditions Bonsound, adding a new string to her bow.
“At Audiogram, we tried to offer artist management, only to realize that it wasn’t our strength,” says Philippe Archambault, who served as director of Audiogram, founded in 1984 by Michel Bélanger. Under Bélanger’s leadership, Audiogram imposed its quality standards on music production from the late 1980s to the new millennium, while also getting into music publishing by founding Éditorial Avenue in 2000 (the latter, like Audiogram, has been owned by Quebecor since 2021).
A la carte
Jean-Christian Aubry: “We launched Bonsound because the labels established at the time, Audiogram and La Tribu, for example, did not offer a service for artists like us”, from the alternative scene and shunned by commercial radio stations. “We used to joke: if our records don’t sell at least 50,000 copies, Audiogram won’t be interested!”
Bonsound’s business model, Aubry explains, was modeled on that of labels American independents, that is, a “record company that does not own the master tapes and shares its revenues with the artists. It was a completely different model than that of the majors of the time”, which not only Bonsound still follows, but which Audiogram has joined.
This is one of the major transformations that record companies have undergone in forty years, our interlocutors acknowledge: the democratization of access to sound recording technologies allows artists to record their albums themselves, and at little cost, making the role of the label-producer who, in exchange for financing a recording, retained the exploitation rights to the master tapes. “It’s cyclical,” says Alexandre Archambault (no relation to Philippe), co-founder of Bonbonbon. “Each of us has been more independent than the one before us, and we’ve all aspired to grow our business.”
Its business model is inspired by that of Bonsound, “more deconstructed: the idea is to assemble a tailor-made team for each of our artists’ projects. We offer the services we are looking for by doing business with a labeladapted for marketing in Quebec, by asking ourselves: young alternative artists, what do they need to complete their projects?
This is the image of the record company in 2024: unable to profit from album sales, we diversify our sources of income by offering a range of services “à la carte”. Philippe Archambault nicknames this type of contract label-artist “the roaster’s choice”: “I recruit you as an artist, but then, over time, you choose whether you want to be the producer of your album, depending on your financial capabilities, whether or not you have obtained a grant, or whether I produce it.”
In the future
For a decade, adds Philippe Archambault, the place of the artist-entrepreneur, or self-producer, has grown in the Quebec musical ecosystem. The three directors nevertheless believe that the record company still has a role to play in the development of a career.
“All artists can record their albums themselves and turn to the Web to distribute them,” says Jean-Christian Aubry. On the other hand, what the label offer, it’s an expertise that’s impossible to have when you work alone. In twenty years, we’ve released more than a hundred albums — and you, at Audiogram? “Precisely 513 in 40 years,” replies Philippe Archambault. “If a young artist finds success, he won’t have the choice to surround himself, affirms the director of Bonsound. You can’t be on tour and at the same time take care of delivering vinyls! It’s not true that an artist-entrepreneur whose career suddenly takes off can be better than a team that knows what needs to be done to take the project as far as possible.”
The distance an artist can travel, however, seems much shorter today than it did 40 years ago. At Audiogram, Daniel Bélanger and Michel Rivard have already sold more than 200,000 copies of their albums, a number impossible to conceive in the era of streaming.
“Our biggest competitors today are the Meta and Google of this world, against whom we must fight to make our music known,” assures Alexandre Archambault under the approving gaze of his elders. Discoverability is a major issue for the bosses of labels Quebecers, who feel disadvantaged by the algorithms deployed by the platforms streaming.
“Our goal,” adds Jean-Christian Aubry, “is to work to give artists long, sustainable careers. What saddens me today is that, even if we manage to survive as an industry and develop new talent, we have all the difficulties in the world to be able to ensure young artists a long career, because there is no longer enough income to be drawn from this industry.”
“When I think of the 20e Bonsound’s anniversary, I’m worried, Aubry continues. In 50 years, around a fire, will we sing a song from Les Louanges or will we still come back to Paul Piché? Why is Philippe B not considered the important composer that he is? Who will be the next great artists in our musical world? I’m not worried about my business, we will always find a way to grow. But if growing means constantly signing new artists only to see them leave the business for lack of income, what’s the point?