Take Back the Lab! Artistic Freedom is the Only Way We Will Hear Truly Great Music Again

Jason Pappafotis

15 min read

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Take Back the Lab! Artistic Freedom is the Only Way We Will Hear Truly Great Music Again

The Problem With Innovation in Music

Once upon a time, the great composers of history were supported by wealthy patrons or institutions such as philanthropists, cities, or churches. These patrons vied to have the greatest music, to be known as the greatest musical cities in the world, or to produce the most beautiful music in worship of God. These were noble endeavors, stirring passion and uplifting the culture and creativity of humanity.

The great Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, "If you want to know whether a kingdom is well-governed, if its morals are good or bad, the quality of its music will furnish the answer." This profound truth is deeply rooted in the human psyche. People often experience "religious" or transcendent moments when the right music accompanies great endeavors. Music is art, expression, worship, passion, and something we associate with both our fondest and most painful memories.

Notice that, until now, there has been no mention of products, sales, streams, or business. Art is not supposed to be a business; it does not naturally emerge from great artists for the purpose of mass consumer sales. This commercialization of art is a modern phenomenon, and it has taken a stranglehold on almost everything we can access in the digital world.

The productization of music has made sales and streams more important to producers than the creation of genuine art. Record labels were originally created with the goal of supporting and funding new artists through a process called Artist Development, fostering the greatest talents of each generation. In the early days of mass media (radio and TV), this process was healthy and wildly successful. However, once music became freely available to stream, the focus shifted almost entirely to the mass production of pop music, abandoning a great deal of art that wasn’t primed for mass consumption. We live in a pop, mass-media society, and it’s critical that we better understand and work within this framework.

Record labels have become specialized, corporate banks with an excessive focus on reducing risk and ensuring a guaranteed bottom line. They lend artists money with strict conditions to recoup their funds before artists can receive any royalties. Worse than banks, labels demand ongoing control and revenue from nearly everything the artist produces in the future. Unlike banks, which don't take over your business after providing a loan, record labels often require artists to sign away control of their careers and livelihoods, sometimes permanently, in exchange for a small advance and limited access to radio and TV.

It's no longer worth it for the few truly brilliant artists who simply have something to say and want to say it on their own terms. Even for artists aiming to become ultra-successful pop stars, it’s not usually worth signing away their rights when they can now build careers independently online. Artists can achieve success by hiring contractors for services rather than relinquishing control to a "banker" who profits from their creative output. The pop machine has its place, but it’s not for everyone—especially not for those artists who work in unconventional ways.

This is the essence of the rat race. Musicians are trapped in cages—much like Prince symbolized when he wrote "slave" on his face—serving corporate interests. They become factory workers, churning out products to meet sales quotas, making empty music that fits a corporate mold. This environment stifles true human creativity and expression; it is an experiment on lab rats designed to enrich corporations. Music has been reduced to a commodity, and that is why we no longer hear great music as often as we once did.

The world needs great music—for our culture, our sanity, our good times, our bad times, and as a legacy that shows our generation had a soul. I believe great music can return to the world by creating better support structures for musicians. The music business has its place as a business, but it no longer provides the environment necessary for developing new artists on a large scale—it only supports commercially viable products, not genuinely great music.

This is not another rant about how the music business needs to be overthrown or revolutionized, because it functions just fine in achieving its commercial aims. Instead, I am presenting a new philosophy to restore a rainforest of ideas, innovation, creation, and genuine artistic freedom through alternate and additional means. This idea explores how great music scenes are born organically, how communities form around key cities or players, and how the real answer to the lack of innovation and artist development lies in the power of communities, patrons, and people.

Artistic freedom only exists when no one owns the career or destiny of the artist—when we all support them simply because they are great artists. This is a call to action for everyone who loves art to support their favorite artists without financial strings attached, without trying to own the artist or the art for profit. Let’s support artists for the sake of art itself.

The Corporate Stranglehold on Music

The Rise of Corporate Control

Let me add a big caveat here that is often overlooked: the corporations are not always malicious in their intent. There is a time and place for big corporate pop music, and many people truly love it. It does help the world in many ways. There are also musicians who aspire to big corporate pop careers, and that is certainly a lofty endeavor. However, the truly creative artists who put their art before all else often find themselves stifled, sometimes unknowingly trapped by the promises of these big corporations.

It’s not always malicious on the part of corporations, but often a misunderstanding on the part of artists who believe they are signing deals in the best interest of their art. There are countless terrible record deals out there, some due to artist ignorance, others due to corporate greed. Many deals are fruitful for both parties, but they rarely prioritize artistic freedom or what is genuinely best for the artist and the art itself. Record deals are business instruments, driven by distribution and profit as primary goals, which is the nature of how the music industry has evolved.

But this evolution has caused us to lose something vital—the old school relationship between patron and artist. This relationship, where people made art for the sake of their church, town, or wealthy patron, produced some of the greatest art mankind has ever known. In this dynamic, art was inspired by genuine human expression, not sales metrics or stream counts. The shift from patrons to corporations has caused the music business to become a behemoth focused only on what is commercially viable.

Utilitarianism vs. Deontology in Music

This all brings us to an important distinction: the philosophies of Utilitarianism versus Deontology. In music, Utilitarianism—helping the largest number of people with mass-market appeal—has taken over. Most corporate pop music is engineered to appeal to the most people possible, with the goal of commercial success. Meanwhile, Deontology—valuing individual rights, liberties, and artistic integrity—has been sidelined.

In environments where true creativity and innovation are desired, focus must be placed on the individual. Artists need the time, resources, and freedom to explore their unique processes without the constraints of corporate timelines and sales demands. This is a very Deontological approach, centered on individual autonomy and support from like-minded patrons.

Prince and the Artist-Corporation Conflict

Prince's famous battle with his record label is a perfect case study. He demanded the largest record deal ever awarded to an artist and wanted the freedom to create as much music as he wanted, on his own time, in his own studio. The conflict arose when the label couldn’t handle his prolific output, and Prince didn’t want to be limited by their release schedules.

On one hand, Prince demanded a massive advance and expected the label to work hard on increasing his sales. On the other hand, he wanted total creative freedom, something corporate labels weren’t built to accommodate. This led to his infamous "slave" protest, where he symbolized the tension between artistic freedom and corporate control.

What Prince really needed was a patron—someone who could appreciate his unorthodox schedule and give him the freedom to create without the commercial constraints. This example shows how artistic freedom and corporate obligations can often be at odds, and highlights the need for an alternative support structure for artists.

Reimagining Music Creation: The Patron-Artist Relationship

We don’t need to overthrow the music business, but we do need a parallel industry that brings back the patron-artist relationship. This has already happened in other areas, like the open-source community and crowdfunding platforms, where people come together to create something they genuinely care about, free from corporate demands.

Much like some people prefer using open-source operating systems like Linux, there are music lovers who would rather support unorthodox, one-of-a-kind art than consume the latest pop hit. Patrons of the arts understand this—they don’t seek mass appeal; they seek something rare and tailored to their tastes, much like commissioning custom artwork for a home or church.

In this way, we can create spaces where artistic freedom thrives, supported by patrons who value individuality over mass-market success.

A Call to Action—Building a Patron-Artist Music Club

The music industry today is a highly commercialized machine, where success is measured by sales, streams, and metrics rather than the depth of an artist’s work or the freedom of its creation. What if there were a parallel path? A path where artists could explore their most daring, experimental ideas without the constraints of market expectations? That’s where the concept of a patron-artist music club comes in.

Imagine a collective of individuals—patrons—willing to take risks on artists with unconventional visions. This isn’t another Kickstarter campaign or corporate label with disguised incentives. It’s about creating a space where art can grow organically, untouched by the pressures of mainstream success. Patrons in this community aren’t motivated by profit; they support artists because they believe in the value of true creativity.

At RATlab Records, we’re building exactly that. RATlab operates like a Skunk Works for the music industry—a secret lab where artists can experiment, push boundaries, and create with total creative control. Our members, the patrons of this lab, are the ones who make this possible. They help fund the production of 100 records each year, becoming executive producers in the process. RATlab is about fostering an artistic rainforest, where rare and beautiful creations can grow in the most unusual ways.

But RATlab is just one manifestation of this idea. The vision extends beyond one platform—it’s a movement. The future of music depends on these parallel structures, where individuality and risk-taking are celebrated. If this resonates with you, consider joining a movement like RATlab. At RATlabRecords.com, we’re building a community of patrons who fund music as art, not as a product.

Artistic freedom is worth fighting for, and through this kind of support, we can bring truly great music back into the world