Rough Trade: 1980's

The contracts effected the development of Rough Trade because they were too simple, for example, two clauses were that they made records together until both or either disagree and that there was a 50/50 split of the sales. They didn't see their business as a commodity. The issues that occurred between the record label and distribution was that they had signed more commercial music and they felt that this was swaying from their ideology. Rough Trade should have made sure they had copyright but they didn't want to be a major company. Rough Trade began a distribution cartel but started to run out of money. They became competitors in the commercial world when they signed 'Stiff Little Fingers' and other bands such as 'Scritti Politti'. Rough Trade's biggest problem was holding on to a band once they had made it. The music trend that emerged at the end of the 1980's was Indie. There was a difference at this time between Rough Trade and other independent music labels because there was a rave scene that Rough Trade didn't delve into and it was becoming more popular than what Rough Trade had to distribute. 'The Smiths' joined Rough Trade as they didn't want to belong to a major company. Rough Trade became international and 'The Smiths' felt they were becoming part of a major commercial company and tried to sign to EMI but were binded by a contract to Rough Trade.