You've got your acts that actually cultivate a fanbase/body of work, blow up, and the label comes to 'sign' you as if they are doing you a favor.

On the inverse you've got a sea of artists that could have been something but the label basically put em out there on their own to figure shit out. This reminds me of the Mr.Exquire read in rollingstone a few years back.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/mr-muthafuckin-exquires-music-biz-misadventures-20140620

Where obviously he didn't have as big a hit as Panda but def. had a buzz. While labels always sucked/were shady, it makes you wonder if twenty years ago there would have been at least some dudes there to help him cobble together some kind of project.