”Getting Signed” and the Ideology of Record Contracts Featuring David Arditi

What happens if you or your band is good, like—really good? You get SIGNED. A record contract! You've made it!....or did you? The fact that major label contracts aren’t particularly fair is well known, but what if they’re doing more than just ripping off artists and an empty promise? In his recent book, “Getting Signed: Record Contracts, Musicians, and Power in Society,” Scholar David Arditi argues that label contracts are actually a key element in an ideological system that structures popular music, one that stretches from the Grammys or The Voice to your local Battle of the Bands and the basic assumptions of friends and family. Taking a long hard look at one of the central building blocks of the modern music industry, Arditi helps Sam and Saxon think through why labels retain their power despite changing technology—and how that landscape could shift in the future.