Vivisecting Media

The Growth of Internet Music Stars

Over the last year we have been seeing more and more success stories about artists using the internet as a way to establish a fan base. One of the first “breakout” artists was Geoff Byrd. Geoff used Garageband.com as a launching point to expose his music to a larger audience. He spent around a year promoting the album day in and day out till finally he became the top download at Garageband, beating out Greenday and U2.

Geoff then signed to a mid-sized indie label with national distribution and released his album nationwide. Once the album was released he did 200 radio-station tour playing and promoting his music. Geoff made headlines because he was the first to establish himself nationally using the internet as his launching point and doing this all without any major label backing. We all had imagined the possibility of using the internet as a promotion system but Geoff was the first to reap the benefits.

Almost a year later we had the next huge leap in internet based success. The Arctic Monkeys, out of the UK, took it to the next level by growing their popularity to such extremes that when their first album finally released in the UK, they hit number one that day. This is unheard of; a technically unknown band releases their first, and I mean first, album and it hits number one in the same day.

Like Geoff, the Arctic Monkeys’ used a website as a way to build a fan base. Instead of Garageband, the Arctic Monkeys used MySpace. As we all know, MySpace is making a ton of headlines for all kinds of reasons, and this was a pretty big one. Here an untried band who was able to put up tracks they were working on, push shows they were playing locally and build a network so vast they literally built an international following without having to travel there to do it.

The next big step is being reported on by Digital Music News. Sandi Thom, out of Scotland, just signed a deal with RCA/Sony BMG (good god I forgot Sony owned RCA) to develop her next album. The reason this is interesting news is that she got this attention by playing shows, without leaving her flat. She did a virtual tour for 21 consecutive days and broadcasted the performances live to the internet.

James Au (embedded journalist for Second Life) mentioned a story about a performer in Seattle that now makes a living by doing virtual shows in game. The aritst would shoutcast a music stream of his performance and players of the game would tune in. The listeners would then tip the artist with Linden dollars (in-game currency) that he could convert to real money if he so desired.

We are seeing a sort of evolution of music performance and promotion via the internet. The thing is these are only a handful of examples and I feel it would be hard for anyone to replicate what they have done. There are more possibilities for sure, but there is no guarantee that playing virtual shows or putting your band on MySpace will get you success. What the articles always fail to tell you is the hundreds of hours these people put in attracting attention, networking with fans and just plain promoting what they are doing. There is now even more opportunity, but it still requires good old fashioned hard work.