We haven’t spoken much about it on Unreality Music before, but the revolution in the music industry is something we follow quite closely.

The last few months have been pretty interesting. I’m thinking back to Prince’s freebie distribution of his Planet Earth in a Sunday paper. Lately, we’ve had Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails dissing and then divorcing his record label. Radiohead have gone and released their album over the Internet, allowing fans to pay whatever they think the album’s worth.

There’s an interesting article over on the CNN website about all this, citing other major artists making innovative decisions about their careers:

Earlier this year, Paul McCartney signed with Hear Music, a startup label launched by coffee retailer Starbucks Corp. and Concord Music Group, rather than going to a major.

Even the Eagles are going it alone with their upcoming album, “Long Road Out of Eden.” The group, which has sold more than 120 million albums worldwide, will release the album exclusively through Wal-Mart stores.

The latest news is that Madonna may be considering dropping her long time label Warner Bros in favour of a new arrangement with Live Nation.

It’s worth noting that at the unsigned scale, artists have MySpace and other Internet properties to connect with their audiences. At the level I like to call ‘international superstar’, the opportunities are far greater. And while I’m not really interested in what Madonna’s arrangements are (as long as she keeps her aging lycra-clad arse away from me), this hopefully represents a seismic shift in how musicians think about promoting their work.

I don’t think this means the end of the traditional ‘evil recording industry’ model – too many artists still want nothing more than a major deal – but it’s nice to see other opportunities springing up for musicians.

The wait-and-see will be in how these pioneering artists fare in this new industry – will they sacrifice their careers for their beliefs, or will they eventually return, cap-in-hand, to their original labels?