Labels tell us why they’re needed

Music execs claim that we need them to separate the wheat from the chaff:

Ted Mico, the head of digital strategy at Interscope, defended the majors by saying that “anyone who has spent an hour or a day listening to demos understands the labels’ place in the food chain”; that is, labels provide both filtering and then marketing of music. Without their help, promising artists would be lost in a sea of noise and would be almost impossible for music lovers to discover. [from Ars Technica]

It’s nice to know the labels are there to make sure that we only get to listen to the very best music…