mr dave

emphasis on the semi-decent quality. you're right though, it's perfect for a first album and it's worked for more than a few bands. but until you try recording a proper two song single you're not really going to be able to fully grasp the amount of time and effort involved in making proper full length recordings.

one significant thing you're forgetting when talking about labels is the financial advance they provide to a band for recording their album - aka their primary function. it's BIG money to record in a studio for any prolonged period of time. producers and engineers don't work for free. graphic artists need to feed themselves once they've created the cover art for your record too. etc. the fact that they invest 100s of thousands into every record is why they push so hard to control the marketing and distribution of their product (even though it seems like they've been investing in poop lately).

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