While at work today, I started pondering if an online presence for a band/artist is actually a REQUIREMENT or BENEFIT, or just a way for our music scene to get bombarded with no-talent bands....When you look at new bands, most of them have a Facebook, MySpace, PureVolume account so that they can "promote" themselves....What ever happened to word of mouth, the way bands got known in the 80s/90s? I do understand that it HELPS to have a band page on social networks, but is ONE of each really a necessity? Would an artist be more popular or famous if they had a Twitter, MySpace & Facebook? Or is the fact of just a simple online presence sufficient for them....When you look at the evolution of social networks for music, you'll see that most of the hype happened with PureVolume, a place to post music on a web-based player so that individuals could hear your music, without the need to download any songs to the computer....Then, MySpace became the new FAD, it didn't take long for MySpace Music to be created, so that artist could do the same basic things as PureVolume, but with the ability of so much more.......Honestly, if you look at 80% of NEW artist in our modern roster of bands, most have been "discovered" online.....Is the fact of them gettin' signed to major labels a product of massive online followers, even if the band sounds like William Hung on a BAD day?!?! Or is PURE talent still a pre-requisite for makin it big.....Bands like Madina Lake, FallOut Boy & Forever The Sickest Kids have all become "known" due to having a PureVolume or MySpace page......Of the above mentioned bands,only FTSK has actually proven themselves to have talent...I guess the label bigwigs think that "If They Already Got A Following, It's Awesome Cuz We Can Invest LESS $$$ To Market Them"
Honestly, I want truely talented bands to get signed to labels!
But, then again, how would I learn of all these NEW artist without sites like PureVolume, MySpace & Facebook.....?
Well, you're right. Most of the indie bands of today WOULDN'T be known without social networking websites. Personally, I think bands with real talent who work hard to get noticed and are noticed by big shots in the music industry first hand are what we need more of, but unfortunately our generation and society LIVES and feeds off of social networking websites. People choose the easiet route, and nowadays that means gathering an online following.
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