Over the past year or so, we have been working with a few recording companies, some massive ones and some smaller ones. From working with these companies, we learn that most of them love Drupal because:
1) Drupal supports multi-site: A lot of these recording companies have a large number of artist web sites. In Fact, a bulk of the web development work for these companies tend to involve artist web sites rather than their main portal web site. The Drupal multi-site infrastructure allows for single-sign-on across the various web sites and also allows for the sharing of some modules. All of this represents a lower development and maintenance cost.
2) Drupal is great for social networking features: Over the past 2-3 years, most recording companies have been putting more emphasis on the web promotions aspect of their marketing plan. A big part of this emphasis involves creating an online environment that promotes fans interaction through commenting and discussion forums.