This is going to be a purely informative thread

A lot of Larries don’t have a concept of what management and label are, the differences between them, what roles they have, and basic contract law

So let’s break it down a little, shall we?

Disclaimer: I’m not in the industry or a music executive. I don’t have sources inside either. What I have is years of experience as a huge music fan and a huge interest in learning this sort of stuff

Please don’t blindly believe what I (or ANYONE ELSE says about this)

Do your own research, ask around and see if anyone can help you out with whatever you can’t source yourself. If your twitter mutual or a random person on tumblr claims to be an industry insider, they’re most likely lying

Don’t be ashamed of not knowing stuff!

Most major music artists have three key elements in terms of their publicity, promo, marketing, etc

• The record label
• A manager or management company
• A publicist or PR company

For instance, in Harry’s case (in order)

• @ColumbiaRecords
• @FullStopMGMT
• @DawBell

The record label has two major roles in an artist’s career:

1. Album creation (writing, recording, producing, mixing, artwork)
2. Album rollout (choosing dates, choosing singles, marketing, booking performances, interviews, playlist positioning, music videos, etc)

A label can also be involved in an artist’s tour (or not, though nowadays most labels have at least some level of involvement), and merchandising

A label must work in conjunction with the artist’s manager in terms of booking performances and interviews (and tour and merch if it

applies), and with the artist’s publicist for marketing (marketing is basically ads on tv or radio, billboards, social media promotion, sending out merch to influencers. There are a million marketing techniques)

This is why often people confuse the roles different parts of an

artist’s team take, because they do have some overlap. In fact, every artist, every manager, every label, has their own methods and no two teams work the same.

For instance, for most artists, marketing would mostly fall in the hands of their publicist, but for Harry, Columbia’s

svp of digital marketing has said they’re the ones behind Eroda (which most likely means they’re the ones behind DYKWYA and the other websites as well)

What’s the role of a manager, then? A manager will, well, MANAGE an artist. They’ll be, most of the time, in charge of the

artist’s schedule. A label can suggest (or even push) for certain interviews and they can surely help get a spot (especially for new artists) but a manager will book most. The manager will arrange time slots, festival appearances, print interviews, radio interviews, etc

A manager will negotiate award show performances and public appearances (at high profile parties, at impotent events, etc). Managers will book sponsoring deals and connect the artist to brands

For artist’s like Harry, who occupy more than one industry, managers will be key to

well, manage their time. (Though Harry also has an acting agent and agency, Alex Mebed at CAA). Some artists also have modeling agencies (like Niall has/had Wilhemina), but it’s not necessary unless they actively pursue a prolific modeling career.

You’ll see some people on

tumblr claim that Jeff “uses Harry” to promote his other clients. But that’s not the case. Jeff’s clients on Full Stop are only Harry and HAIM. He helps out with Megan Trainor but her main manager is Tommy Bruce. The rest of the Full Stop roster is under different managers.

Full Stop is a partnership that accommodates multiple managers. But aside from that, yes, artists that have the same manager or even the same management company will often interact because it’s beneficial for both parties. It doesn’t mean the interactions aren’t sincere tho.

Otherwise all artists under the same company would interact with each other and that doesn’t happen. Being under the same parent company helps artists build genuine relationships between them. It’s sort of like becoming friendly with your co-workers. This also happens between

artists aren’t the same label as well, btw.

Of key importance, the difference between a label and a management company is that you’re (essentially) employed by a record label. You sign a contract that lasts for a certain amount of time or a certain amount of albums, and you are

supposed to deliver. For a manager, it’s the other way around. Not all contracts are the same, but for most managers, you can drop them whenever you want. You hired them. You don’t thank to obey them. They WORK FOR YOU.

The reason so many 1D stans got it so wrong with Modest

is that they were under a very specific set of circumstances as X Factor contestants. They were presented with a recording contract (of £2 million, which was twice as big as the record contract of the winner, Matt Cardle). They were all 16-18 years old, had little to no

experience in the industry, their parents had little to no experience in the industry, and they weren’t able to consult lawyers (other than the ones provided by the label).

They didn’t really have much of a chance to negotiate the terms. It was this contract or no contract

Which left them with no choice. We don’t know the specific terms of the contract. Just in broad terms, that it was £2m for two albums. Their record label was Syco Music, which was a division of Syco Entertainment (which owned the rights to the X Factor). Syco Music was owned

partially by Simon Cowell and partially by Sony Music Entertainment. All X Factor contestants signed Syco. Syco also had an agreement that Modest Management would manage all their acts, so 1D didn’t “hire” Modest. Syco did. That was a huge conflict of interest, because the

manager, as I said, is supposed to work for the artist, but in this case, their loyalty was to the label. When Rebecca Ferguson sued Modest, she did so because she felt like they didn’t have her interests at heart. A manager can’t overwork yo. If they try to, you fire them.

But because Modest was hired by Syco (and thus, essentially written into their recording contracts), Syco artists couldn’t get rid of them. They weren’t forced to comply because they’re not slaves, but if you’re new in the industry and everyone in a position of power pushes and

pushes you, and threatens to take privileges from you unless you comply, that’s called coercion.

So, yes, 1D was overworked. And yes, Modest was partly responsible. And yes, 1D couldn’t get rid of them. But they weren’t the instigators. The instigator was Syco. All the 1D guys

have a really good working relationship with Modest. Niall literally signed with them as a solo act (which is an entirely new contract). Louis went to Kim Davidson’s wedding. Anne sent them heartfelt thank yous for taking care of Harry so well.

It’s not what you want to hear,

but Modest isn’t the big bad monster you want to believe it is. Syco wasn’t either. They were a tiny record label that had very small resources and suddenly found themselves with a gigantic act like 1D

Let’s make it clear, Syco overworked them. And in conjunction with their

PR company, didn’t really have their best interests at heart (for Harry and Zayn in particular), but most record labels are like this, especially with teeny bop acts and boy bands. Boy bands have a shell life and eventually stop being profitable, so they churned out albums and

singles and videos and merch and movies and tours and perfumes and dolls because they knew the band had a ticking clock. It doesn’t excuse them. By 2013 all the guys were hitting a breaking point, but I think all labels would’ve done the same.

Syco is now defunct. Its assets

(most of the artists that were signed to them and the old masters of their previous artists) have now been absorbed by Sony Music Entertainent. This is why Louis is not with them anymore. His label situation currently is unclear. Other Syco acts have already announced their new

labels, so we’ll see what happens.

So, this will have its own thread, but when you say that Jeff overworks Harry, for instance, aside from it being demonstrably untrue (Harry is only filming a movie right now, after months of not doing much of anything), it’s also factually

untrue. Harry’s contract with Full Stop came before Harry’s contract with Columbia Records (he signed FSM in January 2016 and Columbia in May 2016). He chose Jeff after three years of friendship. He can 100% fire him if he decides Jeff is not doing his job correctly or pushing

him too hard. Harry was almost 22 and had a net worth of 50 million dollars when he signed with Jeff. He had the best lawyers in the music scene and 5 years of experience as a music artist. He wasn’t a naive 16 year old being taken by the nose by powerful people.

So he CHOSE the terms of all his contracts. Furthermore, he was A FREE AGENT in 2016.

For some reason fans have decided that 1D’s contract was 10 years long. They can’t decide if it was with Syco or with Modest. But the truth is, it was with neither.

Modest’s contract was 5

years long. They signed it in December 2010 and it ended in December 2015. Here is a plaque Modest made for them once their contract was dissolved

You legally can’t hire a new manager if you’re already signed to a different manager. It’s called non-compete. Harry got a new manager in 2016, meaning he couldn’t have been signed to other managers before that.

This goes for all the guys. Zayn signed with FAE, Liam signed with

KIN, Niall re-signed with Modest (where he now has financial investment with Modest Golf), and Louis first signed James Grant Group, dropped them in 2018, and signed with Three Six Zero.

So, the Modest contract was 100% done in 2015. Now what about the Syco contract?

Well, as I said before, their original Syco contract was for £2 million (that’s the investment the label is willing to make in the album, btw, not money they give to the artist), for 2 albums. So 1D was free of their Syco contract by 2013. And they re-signed with them for 3 more.

You can google it and you’ll find plenty of articles about it. You can also check their schedule and see that 1D’s tours became INCREDIBLY easier to handle in 2014 (when the new contract kicked in), likely because they were in a position to negotiate with the label and set the

terms. So, they had to deliver three albums in 2013. Which they did. Midnight Memories, Four, Made in the AM. With the release of MITAM, 1D was free of their Syco contract. A contract that would now be defunct anyway, as the label doesn’t exist anymore. For instance, the

Band PRETTYMUCH which was previously signed to Syco, is now under Sire Records, which is a subsidiary of Warner Music.

A quick rundown for those who don’t know, there are three major record label families:

• Sony Music
• Universal Music
• Warner Music

Each of those families has different subsidiaries.

Sony:
• Columbia (Harry)
• Epic (Camila Cabello)
• RCA (Miley Cyrus)
• A couple of small ones (Arista, Kemosabe, Syco formerly, etc)

Universal:
• Republic (Taylor Swift)
• Capitol (Niall)
• Polydor (Lana Del Rey)
• Interscope (5SOS)
• Def Jam (Rihanna)
• Tons of small ones

Warner:
• Elektra (Ed Sheeran)
• Warner (Dua Lipa)
• Atlantic (Paramore)
• Other small ones

If an artist isn’t signed to these labels (called “the big three”) it’s essentially considered an indie artist.

When I said that record labels are in charge of the creation of an album and of the rollout, I’m gonna expand on that and then hopefully close this

Labels can be extremely controlling of an artist or essentially leave them to their own devises. Syco was extremely controlling of 1D. Yes, until the very end. 1D had what amounted to minders who decided everything that would happen with the band. Liam has talked about how they

didn’t get to choose their own singles. Harry complained about wanting trumpets in a song and not being allowed to have them. Zayn was never allowed any input because his sound didn’t fit what the label wanted from them. Yes, they could write, but it was basically painting by the

numbers. They had a professional team of writers taking over almost every single track. They wrote most of 1D’s big singles without any input from the band whatsoever (Drag Me Down...)

It’s like they gave the 1D boys a toy keyboard and went like “yeah play with that and we’ll

pretend you’re writing” but the final day was ALL the label’s. The label also decided when to release what (Harry complained in multiple interviews about their albums being released too fast, for instance). Zayn complained about the merch not being their taste.

But Harry said with both albums that the label let him do whatever he wanted to do. “Thank you for leaving me alone” ... some people took it as shade. It wasn’t!! He’s truly thankful, because he didn’t have that luxury in 1D! Now his music is HIS and his alone. The label just

gives him the money to book a recording studio, pay the producers, pay the musicians, buy the instruments, all the equipment needed. Accommodation for Harry and team in Jamaica for HS1, etc. They also pay for the music videos, the creation of the physical albums, the photoshoots

they outfits, the plane tickets. The food. For the billboards for staging of his performances. All of it comes from the “album” budget. It’s all included in the 80 million dollars they offered him. It’s 80 million for all 3 of his albums. And he has to give that money back to

the label in earnings (he’s fine, considering he was Sony’s biggest earner for the entirety of the past year). Harry gets paid for his music after the label recoups their investment. So he’s not really making THAT much money from it (he does get paid for streams immediately tho,

so he made a pretty penny on that). It’s why most smaller artists rely so heavily on touring and merch. Most of them are in debt to their labels their entire careers. There’s a documentary about this called Artifact. You can watch it on Amazon. It’s about the band 30 Seconds To

Mars having a legal battle with their label (under Universal Music Group). Curiously, Irving Azoff, Jeff’s dad, was their manager and helped them get out of that contract.

So... I think that’s it. If you have any doubts, as always, my DMs are open. I can always male a thread

with clarifications and answering questions you might have. This is long but it’s a lot of information I picked up over the years that I think many people would benefit from. Do fact check me, please!