Breast-Feeding Photo Brouhaha Shows How Impossible It Is To Rate Websites

More Musicians Discover That Online Is The Path To Fame

from the and-so-it-goes dept

Tue, Dec 30th 2008 1:16pm — Mike Masnick

Whenever we point to examples of musicians succeeding by embracing what the digital world enables, we always get some angry comments, often from folks claiming to be music industry insiders insisting that what we describe is really impossible -- especially for unknown artists. They say this despite repeated evidence this is untrue, including an increasing number of musicians who pulled off success stories. The response is always a search to find exceptions -- especially when it comes to live shows. One popular comment is that it's impossible for unknown musicians to ever get gigs. And, of course, there are some who still insist that you have to spend a ton of money to do a decent recording to get noticed.

This is, of course, ridiculous. The Wall Street Journal pops up with the story of Justin Vernon and his band Bon Iver. Vernon recorded a bunch of songs at his parents' hunting cabin in Wisconsin with a computer and some software, and put them on MySpace, where he was able to build up a huge following -- often by giving the music out for free. While he eventually went a more traditional route -- signing with a music label, his success suggests those criticisms are once again unfounded. This, of course, does not mean that every musician who records some songs on his computer will be a huge success, but those who say it's impossible are going to have to dig deeper, as it appears pretty much every day we hear of a few examples of musicians making all of this work despite the naysayers.

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Filed Under: bon iver, justin vernon, musicians, online

6 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2008 @ 1:17pm

and the RIAA is the path to SHAME!
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Tpa, 30 Dec 2008 @ 3:14pm

Indie bands know this
Indie bands know that Myspace and DiscoverOurBand.com are great places to pick up fans and get exposed. The Internet makes it easier for most indie bands I would guess.
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Clay, 30 Dec 2008 @ 3:14pm

"musician"
Any "musician" that says it's impossible to get gigs is either a bad musician or doesn't want to put in the work that is required. I've had gigs flying at my face in a mediocre(at best) band making $400-500 a night almost any night of the week we wanted. A top notch polished band that isn't afraid to work hard(like most money making professions) could easily make a modest living in the music business. There are too many lazy bums that think that just because they can play a few chords on the guitar, people should be throwing $100 bills at their crotch.
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PaulT (profile), 31 Dec 2008 @ 3:02am

Interestingly, Bon Iver's album "For Emma, Forever Ago" has been getting an incredible amount of hype in the independent music scene, especially on sites like eMusic. It's not my cup of tea, but a lot of people seem to love it.

In other words - shock, horror! - quality bands are getting gigs and don't need a multi-million dollar marketing machine to get noticed enough to make a decent living. The attention given to Bon Iver has been for nothing other than people truly responding to the music. this is the lesson the RIAA need to recognise - good music sells, good bands will have no problem finding work.

Not everyone deserves success, and nobody's going to get to be a millionaire with this model, but real musicians don't care as much about that as they do the music.
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Dec 2008 @ 4:44am

Re:
nobody's going to get to be a millionaire with this model

You seem pretty sure of that; why?
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Mark Rosedale (profile), 5 Jan 2009 @ 3:45pm

I love Bon Iver
Bon Iver FTW. I really enjoy that group and their latest music vid has a nice home feeling to it (as apposed to the overblown pop music). Love it!
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