Compass Paper

Compass Records

Background

Alison Brown and Compass records

Alison Brown grew up in a family of lawyers, and had she not been influenced by music at an early age, she might have ended up coming a lawyer too. In 1980, Brown carried her passion for playing the banjo with her to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she earned degrees in history and literature from Harvard University. Still thinking that music was an avocation and not a career, Brown enrolled at the University of California-Los Angeles, where she earned an MBA in 1986. By 1992, not only Brown been named Banjo Player of the year by the International Bluegrass Association, but she had also released her first album, which was nominated for Grammy. In 1993, Brown and her husband, Garry West, started Small World Music and Video in Nashville, Tennessee, selling folk, world, and environmental records produced by a company they had sicovered while tour in Australia with Michelle Shocked. With support from investor, the two started producing their own projects and, in 1995, they launched the Compass Records label. By 2005, Brown and West’s intuintive strategy was serving them well. Compass records had grown to include neraly 50 artist under contract, and the company averaged about 20 releases a year.

Compass Records in Context

Within the context of the global music business,Compass Records was tiny. The $32-billion music recording indsutry was dominated by a handful of large, multinational corporations, which accounted for 86% of the market for global recorded music. Those companies included Universal Music Group, with 29%; Sony/BMG, with 30%; Warner Music Group, with 16%; and EMI, with 11%.

Compass Records, had begun to emerge. Smaller and more nimble, these companies saw opportunities in markets where the major record companies could ill-afford to go given the scale of their economies. Brown estimated that 40% of Compass Records’ albums sold 5,000 units or more; only a few of her asrtist were...