CD Baby’s Molly Neuman on Evolution of Indie Music From ’90s to Now – Billboard

Trending on Billboard 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 “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. 
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