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The Internet: Leveling The Playing Field
A few weeks ago, something insane happened. In less than 24 hours, an electronic indie duo from Florida named Blind Man's Colour went from complete obscurity to being the subject of a bidding war between record companies. How could this happen?
Simple. Kanye West found their Myspace page and wrote a blog post about them. Then, other music blogs began to follow and, before you know it, record companies were scrambling to sign them.
Yesterday Wavvves, the second album by noise punk artist Wavves, was released on digital distribution with the physical release due out in about a month. Regardless of what you think of his music or his intentionally low-quality sounding studio recordings, his story is pretty inspiring. He only started recording music early last year and, since then, he has gained pretty notable media attention including a mention on ABC News. The craziest part of it all is that he really didn't do anything to promote himself in the traditional sense; he didn't play shows, he didn't send his record to labels, or anything like that. He gained pretty much all his hype completely through word-of-mouth over the internet, which eventually lead to his record deal. And all this in less than a year. How crazy is that?
It's not just music, either. The same sort of effect is very apparent in indie games and comics too. We live in a time where a small development team with an idea like Counter Strike or Portal can be discovered and picked up by the likes of Valve. Where it used to be near impossible for independent artists, developers, and writers to reach the companies and the mainstream, it is now not only possible but very achievable. What a fantastic time to be alive!
[Edit] Yeah, sorry guys, not that much to discuss here. This is just my little "Fuck yeah, internet!" post.
Simple. Kanye West found their Myspace page and wrote a blog post about them. Then, other music blogs began to follow and, before you know it, record companies were scrambling to sign them.
Yesterday Wavvves, the second album by noise punk artist Wavves, was released on digital distribution with the physical release due out in about a month. Regardless of what you think of his music or his intentionally low-quality sounding studio recordings, his story is pretty inspiring. He only started recording music early last year and, since then, he has gained pretty notable media attention including a mention on ABC News. The craziest part of it all is that he really didn't do anything to promote himself in the traditional sense; he didn't play shows, he didn't send his record to labels, or anything like that. He gained pretty much all his hype completely through word-of-mouth over the internet, which eventually lead to his record deal. And all this in less than a year. How crazy is that?
It's not just music, either. The same sort of effect is very apparent in indie games and comics too. We live in a time where a small development team with an idea like Counter Strike or Portal can be discovered and picked up by the likes of Valve. Where it used to be near impossible for independent artists, developers, and writers to reach the companies and the mainstream, it is now not only possible but very achievable. What a fantastic time to be alive!
[Edit] Yeah, sorry guys, not that much to discuss here. This is just my little "Fuck yeah, internet!" post.
Comments
The internet is pretty great.
Don't be difficult.
Don't get me wrong. I was not trying to say that ITG made MS popular. I was just saying that I don't know anyone personally who heard of MS before ITG came out. Then again, I only know a handful of people out of the 6 billion on this planet, so that should obviously be taken with a grain of salt.