Molly Neuman on the Evolution of Independent Music From the ’90s to Now: ‘It Was a High-Risk Business’
Categoria: Musica
On the latest episode of Billboard On the Record, the CD Baby president talks the move from physical to digital and why 150,000 songs are now uploaded daily.
Por Billboard | 20/10/2026
Releasing music has never been easier. What is now completed with basically the click of a button via an online distribution service like DistroKid, CD Baby or TuneCore was once a laborious process of trying to convince local stores to stock your records on their shelves one by one. “It was a high-risk business,” Molly Neuman , president of CD Baby, explains. In the early 1990s, as a college student, Neuman formed the now-legendary Riot Grrrl outfit Bratmobile with her friends and navigated the difficulties of making music without major label resources. Simply making a record back then was challenging enough with all the studio and manufacturing costs — let alone getting stores on board to carry it nationwide. Related Questlove on the History of Sampling, From Public Enemy to Today: ‘I See AI as a Parallel to Sampling Culture’ Diddy Moved From New Jersey Prison to Similar Facility in Pennsylvania Weezer to Receive Legend of Live Award at 2026 Billboard Live Music Summit “The idea that you had to order 2,000 copies and spend $20,000 just to have the records sit on a shelf was [also] real,” Neuman continues. “In many cases the records were returned.” On the latest episode of Billboard On the Record, Neuman joins the show to talk about the evolution of the independent music industry and how the challenges facing artists have shifted since her band got its start in Olympia, Wash., more than three decades ago. To watch the episode, check out the YouTube video below or click here for more viewing and listening options. An edited and condensed excerpt of the conversation can also be found below. I want to start at the beginning of your career, when you were starting Bratmobile. What did it mean to be an independent artist in practice in the early 1990s? What did you have to do to get those records out there? We were interested in playing music as friends, with our friends, and going to shows. The easiest way to go to a show was to play one. It was really more about community, being inspired by our peers and people we admired, and wanting to do what we saw them doing. Because we were women, we were also motivated by the fact that we didn’t see as many women onstage or putting on shows, even though we knew they were there. We would literally go to record stores, comb through records, look in the back and see which bands had women in them if they weren’t on the cover. That was our path to discovering new artists and being inspired by them, and then realizing that we could also be musicians. Related Aaron Dessner Talks Longevity in the Music Industry — and His New Label With Interscope We weren’t necessarily there yet. We hadn’t spent high school sitting in our bedrooms learning “Stairway to Heaven”, which I think was somewhat of a model at the time. We learned as we went along. A lot of the bands that inspired us were accessible and simple, so that was our approach. It really wasn’t a ca