It bears repeating: it’s never been easier to make music,
nor harder to make people listen to it. With mass media out of the reach of
everyone except for the already famous and those who ride on their coat-tails
it is clear that innovation is the key to creating and building an audience.
Others talk frequently about starting small, concentrate on
converting individuals and with luck and perseverance the message spreads. This
assumes that your ‘product’ is good enough of course; let’s go with that
assumption for now.
I came across a band called Marmozets recently. I happened to hear their single, heard that it was getting some
decent plays from radio folk, noticed that they were on the Download bill and
this caused me to mention it to my 17 year old daughter. She’s the target
market and was already aware of them. The reason she remembered them so well
was that she’s one of their Twitter followers – they also follow her. More
importantly they’ve replied to her random tweets, they have a ‘relationship’.
This alone means she speaks positively of them and is far more likely to
support them in future. It sounds simple, it is simple – probably until the
point that you get so famous that it’s difficult to have that ‘one on one’
relationship. In the short term that’s not a concern. Marmozets have got it
right, they engage the audience and when the material is good enough then they
have an ‘army’ of loyal supporters ready to ‘big them up’. The material is
definitely getting there and they seem primed and ready for the next step.
That next step is the crossover moment; the point at which
your small army is engaged fully and your material is ready for a wider
audience. To get there is much harder as it inevitably involves industry
support in the form of radio-plays, press coverage, support slots with
like-minded bands that’ve got to the next step of the ladder and, if you’re
lucky enough, a spot on the right TV show. For a long time Later With JoolsHolland has been a great platform for breaking new music, the list of acts that have
excelled as a direct result of the show is legion. Whether you like it or not
‘Later’ is undoubtedly a band breaker. In a 30 minute show that also features
established artists it must be insanely difficult to get a slot. Once you have
it you have to make the most of it, like Royal Blood.
Before ‘Later’ Royal Blood were just another act whose name lurked
somewhere in my consciousness but insufficiently front of mind for me to remember
what kind of band they were – despite having heard a previous track, ‘Little
Monster’ on radio. It transpires they’re exactly the kind of thing I like, a
sound with great fluidity and density, riffs with melody. They were good enough
on the edited Tuesday version of ‘Later’ to make me want to see the extended
version on Friday. Few acts achieve that, perversely (and possibly because) I
don’t even watch Later that often.
Naturally this is out of the reach of most. You probably
have to plan your campaign like Marmozets and hope to reach the stage of Royal
Blood, before and beyond both you’ll face a lot of hard work. This level
of success is for the committed and the talented. There are no short cuts but
there are a few routes.
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