I've been into metal for a good 8-10 years now, which won't seem long to a lot of you, and like a million years to others. In that time I've seen some real changes in how music is promoted and how we hear new bands. The internet has a lot to do with this, with places like Myspace being used as a bands main marketing tool. But is this really helping these smaller acts out?
Back in the day when I first got into metal, and before I had access to the internet, I found most of my bands through demo CDs free with magazines or through friends sending cassettes with a whole host of bands that I'd never heard of before. I can honestly say, this is where I found the bulk of the artists I listen to today, from In Flames to Cheesecake Truck, Static X to Guano Apes, my tastes evolved and developed based on recommendations from media and mates.
But now, when people recommend you a new band, they send you a link to a bands profile on Myspace. It's a great way of finding new bands, hearing some tracks by bands you might not normally get a chance to check out, and a great way to promote up and coming acts.
It's a fantastic tool to get exposure for your brand new shiny metal band, or is it?
The problem with Myspace is there are far too many people trying to push their act in your face. Bands and artists which you may have no interest in (the amount of hip hop/rnb and dance artists that try to add me really annoys me). So what do you do? You block bands from adding you, and you end up missing out on some brilliant acts in the process! And if it's not the bands adding you, or sending you spam messages telling you to "check us out", it's these stupid little fan created street teams trying to do the same, but they're even harder to block because they have normal profiles.
On the flip side, there are too many people who "friend collect" and just add people and bands to make up their numbers. You may be listening to a fantastic new act who have 10000 friends, but out of those, how many of them are actually fans of the band, and how many have actually listened to them?
This is a real issue in my eyes. With bands who have real talent, but without loads of backing from friends and acquiantances struggling to promote themselves, and bands that just suck managing to create a huge hype around themselves because they know the right people.
I guess this has probably always been the case, but Myspace doesn't seem to be helping the situation. All you need are the right links, or the right software, to make your band look like the next big thing, forget the talent! And to be honest, Myspace is full of acts that really shouldn't have got any further than some teenagers bedroom.
I don't know what can be done about it, or how new artists are meant to try to promote themselves. But with so many so called bands out there, there is a saturation of talentless w*nk flooding up Myspace, while the real gems get missed or over looked.
It's part of the reason I set up Metaholic Music. We are all fans of metal, and we'll all stumble across little gems that we want people to hear, because we're so passionate about our music. Hopefully that comes across to you readers out there.
I don't know what anyone elses views on this are...?
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5 comments:
completely agree, i don't want to add millions of people i don't know, i feel dirty doing it and i've heard of these programs that will automatically do that and that seems to suck even more.
i just want to play and have fun
I tend to get very picky with bands on myspace, just so I don't end up adding thousands of them and only actually listen to 5. Never hurts to be vigilant sometimes.
The ratio between garbage bands and awesome bands is still the same today as it was before Myspace, we just notice it more now because metal is more accessible than it used to be.
Oh, I'm sure the ratio is the same, it just seems there seems to be more bands in your face getting all the attention because they have a zillion friends on their lists, and really good bands suffer because of it.
I say, bring back the tape sharing :-P
There is still one thing that's important left, and that's viewer choice. On my own site I allow the dance/r&b/etc ... bands to join my page for one reason. Some of them -are- metal fans.
Each band usually contains about 4 people and usually 2 or 3 of them are active at that music account and reading my bulletins, and sometimes, my page!
MySpace was a great thing for me because I met alot of bands out there who would have never been able to reach outside of their own perimeters otherwise. Not because they suck but just didn't have an indie label to promote them as they deserved.
I accept almost every 'add' but my favorites are like Mental Infestation said, though ... word of mouth.
I haven't had problems at The Metal Show except for being irritated by girls spamming bulletins saying '37467236372 more pictures of me in the grass eating noodles! Come comment them all!'.
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