Can you get signed by a label even if you've already recorded your music?

[Jake]

I have finally finished recording songs. I just need a label to do the promotional, legal, distributional etc etc..

Do you have to record your songs with them to get a deal, or can you send a finished album to them and still get a deal to sell your music?

[Josh S]

Not only can you get a deal after you've recorded an album, you almost HAVE to record an album and sell a lot of it on your own to get a deal . . . and that's just the beginning.

First, if you've finished a record and the label likes it and signs you, they'll typically have you re-record it anyway. Often times this redone product is only 5% different than the original. Still, they want that 5%. So, be ready for that and budget your DIY projects accordingly, in the future. There are exceptions to this occasionally, but very rarely. An example is David Gray's first record. They released his original recordings, but not before adding strings etc. and remixing it. So, still they made it their own.

Let me now address the real issue, with that out of the way. You say you "just need a label to do the promotional, legal, distribution, etc." This is a red flag, for me. What you're saying is that you've done the fun part and now you just need a record label to do all the real work for you. Its probably not going to happen that way. Almost no one gets a deal anymore that doesn't already have a successfully functioning business. Why would a label sign even an extremely talented artist who has only completed a record? There are hundreds of others with 100k+ twitter followers, thousands of fans at every show, tens if not hundreds of thousands of sales of their current product (album), etc.

Record labels want to find _proven successes_ so their investment (about $1M for a brand new artist) is as low risk as possible. In other words, if you've made money with $0 of their investment, you'll probably make lots of it with a little push. Unfortunately, this all has ZERO to do with the quality of your music. If you want a record deal in 2012 or 2013, you have to build your business yourself. Search ReverbNation for the most popular artists in your home city. That's your real competition. Get out there and do what they do but do it better, faster and more creatively. Artists don't just "blow up" out of nowhere. One Republic had tens of thousands of loyal followers before they got their deal. Taylor Swift started hitting the pavement hard at age 11 or so and was a seasoned pro by the time she cut her first major label record. So, do the work yourself. Learn to market, learn to put on a jaw dropping show, write new songs daily and 1-mic demo them all each day (yes, really) and you'll start to make money NOW. Then when the deal comes (and it very well may if you get that far), it'll just be a way to improve upon an already successful operation. If you don't have that, you're better off playing the lottery, frankly. The labels simply aren't looking for a diamond in the rough.

I wish you the best! Congratulations on the completion of your record!