Let us not mince words: Life for record labels has significantly sucked for the last decade. Everyone's heard the statistics and conjecture and analysis about the recording industry being doomed by a listening base that is constantly managing to find new ways to consume music for free. It doesn't help that there are always going to be other factors out there to make things worse, such as a poor economy and the recent London riots which
destroyed the physical stock of thousands of indie labels
.
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This doesn't mean that record labels are irrelevant; it's just that it's become more difficult for record labels to conduct their daily business and stay out of the red. On top of that, the longer a label is around, the more difficult it is for it to maintain a steady level of quality while attracting new fans.
Sub Pop Records, the Seattle stalwart that played a pivotal role in unleashing grunge on the world in the '80s, is one of the exceptions to that rule--and thankfully so. The label turns 25 years old next year, and even though it's had dozens of notable bands call it home (the list includes Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Modest Mouse, The White Stripes, The Shins, etc.), it still has a wildly youthful verve. What's kept it going is a taste for diversity in genres. The current roster is loaded with highlights, with No Age banging out intelligent, raw indie-punk, The Ruby Suns playing idiosyncratic indie pop/world music, Dum Dum Girls rewiring '60s girl group pop without sounding contrived or boring, the ridiculously popular Fleet Foxes producing their folks, and Obits making ornery garage-punk for men in their late thirties. In another instance of proof that the label is perpetually willing to take new things one, it recently brought on the excellently enigmatic Shabazz Palaces as its first hip-hop signing. Sub Pop's willingness to take risks is impressive, and even though it's already been instrumental in one major musical movement, the way it diversifies its roster of bands means that it could always be on the verge of being part of another.
The reason this little love letter is going out now is because Handsome Furs, the Montreal electro-pop/punk duo who released Sound Kapital on Sub Pop in June, is performing in Santa Fe tonight with Suuns. Even though guitarist Dan Boeckner is better known for playing in indie-rock outfit Wolf Parade (incidentally, another band on Sub Pop), the Furs are entertaining in their own right, sporting electro-pop/punk with a weird kind of sweetness. If you check them out at Sol Santa Fe Brewing Company & Grill around 7:30 pm tonight, be sure to take a moment between songs to raise a drink to Sub Pop, the Furs' home and one of the best arguments for why the record label deserves to survive.
