“Record companies don’t care about new artists anymore”: How the music industry has changed over the past 60 years

At the start of the year, the UK government announced a new cap on the price of resold tickets for concerts, live sport and other events following outrage from fans about astronomical markups – with the most eye-watering including £85 Adele tickets reselling for £24,000.

It’s one of many controversies to hit the music industry over the past few years, alongside the increasing use of AI in music creation, accusations of industry plants and favouritism, and the dynamic pricing saga that affected Oasis fans ahead of their reunion tour this summer.

With festival season approaching, we spoke with Newcastle University graduate Terry Ellis (BSc Maths and Metallurgy, 1965) to get the inside scoop on how the music industry is changing – for better and worse.

Terry is the founder of Chrysalis Records and has represented household names like Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, David Bowie and Blondie. His career in music began on campus as a student, where he took charge of booking bands to play on Saturday nights in the Students’ Union ballroom and interviewed musicians performing in the city for student newspaper The Courier.

Read on to hear about Terry’s fascinating career and his thoughts on the music industry today.

The start of my journey

I was a big music fan growing up, and a huge Elvis fan (I still am!) but I had absolutely no visions of going into the music industry: it was like going to the Moon as far as I was concerned, it just never occurred to me.

I felt I wasted my first year of university getting swept up in living in the big city for the first time. I studied girls and beer more than maths and metallurgy! So, in my second year, I approached the Students’ Union wanting to make myself useful. There was always entertainment on for students on Saturday night, and the new ballroom with a 400-person capacity had just opened so there was an opportunity there to expand the offering. Previously, we’d just had the college jazz band play one room and a local dance band play in another, but in the early 60s students were shouting for more: they wanted to see the pop groups they were hearing on the radio.

I had no idea where to start, of course, but accepted the job and then began researching! There was a very popular local band at the time called the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo who were managed by the local nightclub owner, so I went to see him and arranged for the band to play my first two Saturday nights in charge. They would play for us at 8pm and then head over to the club in town for a midnight show afterwards.

At the end of their second Saturday performance, the singer came to the front of the stage and said “Well, thanks for being a great audience, but you won’t be seeing much of us around Newcastle anymore because tomorrow we’re going to London to try for the big time. Wish us luck.” And from that moment, they were no longer the Alan Price Rhythm and Blues Combo, but The Animals!

After that, I started booking bands from Birmingham, Manchester and London to entertain our students on campus and we had some pretty well-known faces grace the stage, including Rod Stewart. One of my highlights from that time was standing at the side of the stage watching Ginger Baker playing the drums. He’s now known for playing with Eric Clapton and was just the most phenomenal musician – my jaw was hanging on the floor as I watched him perform! That’s when I said to myself, “I want to work with people like this”.

The rock and roll revolution was in full swing by the time I graduated, and record companies either side of the pond weren’t used to dealing with musicians who actually had something to say - which meant the talent kind of got lost.

The rise of rock and roll

The rock and roll revolution was in full swing by the time I graduated, and record companies either side of the pond weren’t used to dealing with musicians who actually had something to say – which meant the talent kind of got lost. They were used to being able to tell their artists what to do – wear this suit, sit here, go to this hairdresser – but the rock and rollers were more outspoken than the pretty boys the labels were used to. And so, the industry essentially closed rock and roll down – killed it off – by not signing bands from the movement. This left a gap in the market for people like us at Chrysalis Records, Chris Blackwell at Island and Richard Branson at Virgin to set up labels and help these musicians, help the movement.

Chrysalis Records came about because a band I was managing – Jethro Tull – kept hitting a wall when trying to get a record deal. The big labels thought they were too weird. I had great confidence in them though and so thought “if I can’t get you a deal, I’ll set up my own label and give you one!” I was with Jethro Tull every step of the way, from them being the opening act in a little club to selling out stadium shows.

One of the highlights of my career was signing Blondie to Chrysalis. When I first heard about the band, I wasn’t really interested – to me, punk rock meant not playing instruments well, and I had got into the music business to work with brilliant musicians. But as soon as I saw Debbie Harry I knew she was a star. I recognised that same attitude and charisma in her that I had seen as a fan of Elvis as a child. She had what it takes to mesmerise people and get them to queue for hours to see their show!

At the time though, Blondie were signed to another record label, so I thought that was that. A few weeks later I got a call from Blondie’s manager to say they were looking to buy themselves out of their contract and wanted to join Chrysalis. The very nature of a record contract means it’s very hard to get out of, so I was sceptical, but in the end, we lent them $500,000 (almost $3 million in today’s money) to leave their current label and join us. It’s pretty astounding when I look back to think we would do that for a barely known punk rock band, but it paid off!

I often think, how did the grandson of a coal miner from Easington colliery find himself paying millions of dollars to sign rock bands?! And I owe it all to Newcastle University.

It's much harder for artists nowadays

In the UK, we had The Beatles and the Rolling Stones - heavily inspired by American Blues music -creating the rock and roll revolution, but they weren’t penetrating America. The Beatles had a number one with every record they released in England, but the American company that owned the rights to their songs weren’t even issuing the records initially!

Today, artists aren’t at the will of the record labels as much in terms of reaching global audiences – once your music is available to stream online, you have the potential to reach anyone around the world. But I do think it’s much harder for artists nowadays to get their name out there. Yes, they can make a record and make a video themselves fairly cheaply, but who’s going to hear about it?

In the past, all that marketing and promotion was handled by the record companies, so the artists just had to concentrate on making good music and putting on a good show on stage. Back in the 70s and 80s, all aspects of the music industry worked together to develop new artists. The managers, the agents, promoters, the record companies, the radio stations all working together for that mutual benefit to develop new stars for the future. That’s why there were always support slots at every concert you went to, as that was the best way to get new up-and-coming musicians out there.

That doesn’t happen anymore. First of all, there’s no hit radio in America, so there’s no opportunities for new artists to gain exposure. And the major concert businesses like Live Nation aren’t interested in developing new artists, they’re just a money machine.

The greatest impact of music streaming

The record labels, too, have lost their ability to develop artists. They’re much more focused on the past and not the future. That’s the greatest impact of streaming: it’s given catalogues value.

Back in the day, when record companies manufactured records, you’d pay your £10 for a record which you could listen to for the rest of your life - and that would be the end of the financial transaction. But today, even if you own the physical record, chances are you’re still streaming your music. And so all of a sudden, your financial relationship with the industry is back on, because every time you stream my record they get paid. This has meant that old catalogues of music have new value, and the record companies are much more interested in acquiring catalogues or promoting their catalogues than developing new artists.

When I’ve talked to new artists in recent years, they’ve been so excited when getting signed by Sony or Warner Brothers, or whoever, thinking “Wow, I’m going to be a star”. But in reality, they get a few pennies for signing and then the record label sends them off to develop a following on their own which they can then do something with down the line. The onus is on the musician to get their name out there and create a buzz, and it’s really difficult. No one wants to book them because they’ve not heard of them, the venues that support up and coming musicians are closing down, and the cost of supporting live music is rising.

Old catalogues of music have new value, and the record companies are much more interested in acquiring catalogues or promoting their catalogues than developing new artists.

A pain that will be felt for generations

The music industry used to be all about playing live. The record companies think they’re the music industry, but they’re an ancillary industry: on stage is where the music business really is. And back in the 1970s and 80s, with all the bands I was involved in, that’s where musicians cut their teeth and developed, and that’s where the money was. You didn’t really get much in the way of royalties from your record sales, it was all about the tours.

By 2000, though, popular bands were getting nice big royalty cheques from their records and making an album in the studio is a lot easier than being on the road for months at a time, so they suddenly decided they were no longer performing artists. It was at this point that I actually left the music industry, because it wasn’t the industry I knew and loved any more.

Bands found that when they weren’t touring as much, their record sales went down – it was their presence on stage in towns across the country, around the world, that generated that enthusiasm and energy for sales.

The saddest thing of all is seeing just how difficult it is for young artists today and seeing record labels who have made so much money over the years not playing their part to help up-and-coming acts. It’s a pain that’s going to be felt for generations to come.