OWNERSHIP• XL Records was started as an offshoot of Beggars Banquet Records, which has since developed into The Beggars Group, an umbrella group of some of the more iconic indie record labels.

• XL Records was also an offshoot of Citybeat Records, also a part of Beggars. However, with the success of acts such as The Prodigy and SL2, XL rose up in the rankings of importance.

•The label is based in the UK and several producers, such as Richard Russell and Nick Hawkes, work as part of the A&R department.

• Adele

• Dizzee Rascal

• The Prodigy

• Radiohead

• Badly Drawn Boy

• Beck

• be your own PET

• Golden Silvers

• The xx

• Weezer

• Ratatat

• Holly Miranda

• Damon Albarn

• Kid Harpoon

• Gil Scott-Heron

• Gorillaz

• The Cool Kids

• Blue Roses

• Cajun Dance Party

• The Horrors

• Jai Paul

• The Raconteurs

• Various

• Discovery

• Giggs

• Blue Roses

• Basement Jaxx

• Gotan Project

ARTISTS

PRODUCTION• They produce both physical CD’s, digital downloads and vinyl. This is because they have a mix of both mainstream and less known artists, which means the demand for music changes between the two. Vinyl’s are often made for big releases as a collectors item.

• Traditionally, the label specialised in promoting and assisting artists who produced their music at home, or DJ’d in clubs and on pirate radio.

• A lot of their artists are nominated for the Mercury Award, such as Badly Drawn Boy, Dizzee Rascal and The Prodigy.

MARKETING• All of the artists signed to XL Records currently have a webpage on the XL website dedicated to them, which has Concert News and General News about the artist.

• Artists such as Adele have a MySpace account but this may have been set up before she signed to the label. She also has her own website, adele.tv. The same can be said for Dizzee Rascal, The White Stripes and other artists.

• They have a YouTube account which has a lot of live versions of songs by their artists and music videos.

• A selection of their artists are at the fore of the media, especially Adele because she is currently promoting her very successful album “21”, which has broken records in the UK Charts. As stated before, many of their artists are nominated or win the Mercury award.

• The more popular artists are featured on the Radio 1 Playlist.

LONG TAIL

20,430,337 plays ADELE

34,888,258 plays THE XX

DIZZEE RASCAL

8,758,839 plays

be your own PET

4,950,391 plays

DAMON ALBARN

A R T I S T S

POPULAR IN

BOTH UK

AND US

POPULAR IN UK

RELATIVELY UNKNOWN

S

A L

E S

604,031 plays

(DISBANDED)

BOUYED BY MERCURY PRIZE

VICTORY

DISTRIBUTION & EXCHANGE• Artists such as Adele, Dizzee Rascal and Radiohead are very likely to have CD’s advertised all over a store such as HMV as part of the marketing plan for their releases. Nearly all of the artists signed to the label are stocked by HMV regardless of their supposed popularity and most CD’s cost about £10.

• However, currently you can’t download directly from the labels website.

• iTunes stocks from nearly all of the artists from the label.

• The XL Records website has links to their Twitter and Facebook accounts, showing how they’ve adapted to changes in the music industry and the introduction of a participatory culture in the UK. Each of the artists webpage contains different types of media, from pictures at a concert to the latest news about them.

• XL Records could improve their web presence by making it clearer to access the roster of artists they’ve signed, and by making it possible to buy music off of their website or alternatively providing a direct link to iTunes or similar sites.