Miller made the comments to Alison Wenham, chief executive of Association of Independent Music (AIM), at last week’s Finding the Future event in London.
Discussing the late nineties, when Mute Records ran into trouble, Miller said: ‘We faced financial problems due to various reasons, even though we had very successful groups like Depeche Mode and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and Erasure.’
These acts were making records increasingly infrequently and the label was becoming out of step with the new retro-inspired guitar-pop trend.
‘What was going on in the music industry at that time wasn’t very sympathetic to what we were doing,’ Miller said.
‘It was the Brit-pop era, and to me, Brit-pop was very retrograde. I like to think that, artistically, we were future-thinking but Brit-pop was a step back and we didn’t engage with it at all.’
At that point, just as ‘people thought Mute might be dying off,’ the label released American electronic artist Moby’s album Play, which went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide.
Around that time, Miller sold Mute to V2, before buying it back some years later to regain full operational and creative control.
Mute Record continues to be one of the UK’s most successful UK independent labels, with new material from brand new signings Luh and On Dead Waves expected early 2016.
We caught Miller and Wenham's Hacking the International Music Industry panel at last week’s Finding the Future event to learn how emerging acts can break overseas markets. Here's what we learned.
Discussing the late nineties, when Mute Records ran into trouble, Miller said: ‘We faced financial problems due to various reasons, even though we had very successful groups like Depeche Mode and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds and Erasure.’
These acts were making records increasingly infrequently and the label was becoming out of step with the new retro-inspired guitar-pop trend.
‘What was going on in the music industry at that time wasn’t very sympathetic to what we were doing,’ Miller said.
‘It was the Brit-pop era, and to me, Brit-pop was very retrograde. I like to think that, artistically, we were future-thinking but Brit-pop was a step back and we didn’t engage with it at all.’
At that point, just as ‘people thought Mute might be dying off,’ the label released American electronic artist Moby’s album Play, which went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide.
Around that time, Miller sold Mute to V2, before buying it back some years later to regain full operational and creative control.
Mute Record continues to be one of the UK’s most successful UK independent labels, with new material from brand new signings Luh and On Dead Waves expected early 2016.
We caught Miller and Wenham's Hacking the International Music Industry panel at last week’s Finding the Future event to learn how emerging acts can break overseas markets. Here's what we learned.
