Musicians choose to sign under a label because it helps them. It’s like paying for a plumber… it’s so they do the boring work for you.
There are hundreds of thousands of record labels. Your uncle could be running a record label in his garage.
There are hundreds of thousands of record labels. Your uncle could be running a record label in his garage.
UMG alone has 38% of the entire record label market share. Its annual revenue is more than the entire revenue of all independent record labels combined.
AFAIK the lion's share of the market is held by the top ten labels, none of whom have the musician's best interest at heart. So yes, it's reasonable to say that labels generally don't represent musicians.