Downtown’s CD Baby Unwraps a Full-Service Indie Artist Offering

CD Baby president Molly Neuman (Photo: Downtown Music Group)

Downtown’s CD Baby distribution mainstay, now part of Virgin Music Group, is expanding its core distribution know-how to include full-service, hands-on support for select indie artists. Here’s more on the just-unveiled ‘Stages Selects’ offering, spearheaded by CD Baby president (and Riot Grrrl pioneer) Molly Neuman.

Distro mainstay CD Baby is now pulling back the curtain on ‘Stages Selects,’ a high-touch, full-service offering for a select group of self-releasing artists. The launch shifts CD Baby beyond its solid DIY distribution chops and into the realm of strategic career development.

Spearheading the initiative is CD Baby President Molly Neuman, who’s building the concept with the next generation of independent talent in mind. With career development as the primary goal, Stages Selects plans to offer far more than just a pipe to Spotify, with priority distribution, targeted DSP marketing, paid digital campaign support, and high-level release planning all in the offing. As part of a broader partnership, Downtown recently tapped DMN to help announce the expansion.

Although Stages Selects is a new initiative, artists are clearly getting an extra oomph from a longtime distributor who knows the ropes when it comes to platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music.

Kicking off the initiative is Morgan Nagler, whose debut solo album, I’ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I’m Losing It, is getting the Stages Selects hands-on treatment. Beyond Nagler, CD Baby plans to support a cohort of ten artists throughout 2026, offering a dedicated package of marketing and financial resources across a range of genres and geographies.

“Morgan Nagler’s debut album is a testament to the power and passion of human creativity in this complicated time,” Neuman relayed. “The purity of her voice, musicianship, and songwriting make this album the perfect way for us to launch Stages Selects. CD Baby has always stood for artistry and providing direct access for the musicians we work with.”

Neuman is an appropriate pick for championing artists and emerging scenes.

A rare multi-hyphenate whose career spans the evolution of the modern music business, Neuman cut her teeth in a 90s-era Northwest scene that ultimately gave birth to cultural icons like Nirvana.

Originally hailing from Washington, DC, Neuman first made her mark as the drummer for Bratmobile, a cornerstone of the formative Riot Grrrl movement emanating from the Pacific Northwest. When not on stage, she was penning ‘zines’ and driving underground culture with a pre-digital zeal we’ll never experience again.

Waxing with DMN about the early days, Neuman said her entry into the music business was born of necessity rather than corporate ambition.

“Labels were the only way you could get distribution,” Neuman shared. “It was basically DIY, but it was our community. Being a business person wasn’t the big incentive there.”

That community, DIY-focused ethos led her to co-own the legendary Lookout Records and manage artists before transitioning into the digital frontier. Skip ahead a decade or two later, and her resume reads like a map of the industry’s digital transformation, with leadership roles at eMusic, Rhapsody, A2IM, Kickstarter, and Songtrust before helming CD Baby.

CD Baby itself has quite the storied DIY history, with Derek Sivers starting the operation in the late-90s with – you guessed it — stacks of homemade CDs and a nondescript warehouse to store them all. Multiple ownership changes and format evolutions later, and CD Baby is quite a different animal.

Since assuming the presidency of CD Baby in 2024, Neuman has focused on cleaning up the ‘piping’ while maintaining the platform’s independent spirit. Under the Downtown Music umbrella, she oversaw the migration of CD Baby’s massive supply chain to FUGA, a move that freed up internal resources to focus on the customer experience.

“We’ve really spent most of this time trying to figure out what was working and what wasn’t,” Neuman explains. “We’re really trying to build quality control into the platform. If we are a more credible place for artists who believe in success and quality, that should help us market to them because it’s actually genuine.”

That emphasis has borne fruit, with CD Baby routinely ranking among the most reliable distributors – as determined by key distribution platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. But beyond all the blocking, tackling, 1s, and 0s, there are still more important and strategic challenges required to properly evolve and break an artist.

Ultimately, anyone can upload and distribute an album on Apple Music while keeping tabs on analytics and royalties. But then what?

Against an avalanche of content uploads and the real risk artists face of getting drowned out, Neuman’s vision for CD Baby is to provide ‘holistic’ support—bridging the gap between a viral TikTok moment and a long-term career. Whether it’s ensuring metadata is perfect or navigating the complexities of the MLC and SoundExchange, she wants to give artists the leverage they didn’t have 30 years ago.

“Artists have so much more leverage and capability now,” Neuman shared. “And we want to be in a position to support that transformation. That’s part of our values and what we are trying to reposition; we’re here to offer flexibility and give artists the space to grow on their own terms.”