“The ‘music business’ shouldn’t be a time period I exploit,” Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits stated to Rolling Stone in 2015. “I have a tendency to focus on music, and the music enterprise is one thing totally different.”

In different phrases: there’s a line between the artists who make music and the individuals who distribute, market and promote it. The previous social gathering is usually involved with the authenticity of their work and the inventive management they’ve over it, whereas the latter is, sadly, typically profit-driven. In the very best of situations, these two sides come collectively to craft a shared imaginative and prescient for the artwork, one during which everyone seems to be justly compensated for the work they do, inventive or in any other case.

It ought to come as a shock to nobody that as a result of the music enterprise includes loads of cash, ego and fame, it is the prime setting for issues like lawsuits and different such discrepancies. This normally has little or no to do with any precise inventive benefit, and could be made much more ugly when parts of racism and/or misogyny are current.

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“I heard somebody from the music enterprise saying they’re not searching for expertise,” Joni Mitchell stated to the Los Angeles Occasions in 2004, “they need folks with a sure look and a willingness to cooperate.”

Within the chronological gallery under, we’re analyzing over a dozen instances artists put their foot down and stood as much as the powers that be within the music business — attorneys, label heads, and many others. — within the title of their very own artwork.