This indie artist has over a billion streams on Spotify. 10 years ago, a record label told him his music was 'unreleasable'

<p><b>Welcome to the Music Business Worldwide podcast supported by </b><a href='https://www.volymusic.com/'><b>Voly Music</b></a><b>. <br/><br/></b>How big can an independent artist get without help from a major record label?<br/><br/>It’s been a fierce source of debate at this point for 20 years ever since the likes of TuneCore launched in the early to mid-noughties.<br/><br/>These days, though, we have the receipts to answer the question. <br/><br/>Take Bruno Major, a fully independent artist and our guest on this episode of the MBW Podcast.<br/><br/>Major, who released his music via AWAL and owns his own recordings, has comfortably more than a billion streams on Spotify, with two of his tracks – Nothing and Easily – racking up over quarter of a billion streams each. <br/><br/>He recently released his latest singles, We Were Never Really Friends and Columbo, ahead of his third studio album – also called Columbo – which will be out later this summer.<br/><br/>Major is a successful live act, with a tour of Asia, Europe and North America recently confirmed. He&apos;s previously toured arenas with Sam Smith. <br/><br/>He has a particularly interesting history with the record business: Major started out in the music industry by signing (and then leaving) a major label deal with Virgin Records, then owned by EMI, in Los Angeles.<br/><br/>On this podcast, Major discusses his experience of being signed to that major record company as a young man, how that experience has help fuel his career ambitions ever since, and how he keeps himself creatively motivated as an independent artist…</p><p>The Music Business Worldwide Podcast is supported by <a href='https://www.volymusic.com/'>Voly Music</a>.</p>