Puff Daddy is pass . When you're buying the success of the record, you're probably buying the demise of that band. No one has two hits in a row lately. Merge, and the artists it promotes, exists in the context of a national independent infrastructure constructed in the eighties by punk and hardcore bands and the tiny labels founded to distribute their music, music the majors ignored. Some modern independent record companies do not even use contracts, just handshakes.
Word is still bond for some in our highly litigious society.
For a label like Merge to be successful, artists must be aware of its strengths and its limitations. We have the option to spend very little money on, say, advertising. We can do that with certain releases or if the band wants to. A band can sell 2 or 3,000 CDs and still make money. The Ricky Martins and Eminems of the mainstream world can look forward to one more hit single, a flop follow-up album, and a future in obscurity.