Occasionally I hear folks complain about the fact that there is no good music out there any more (this myth was recently perpetuated by LA Reid in this, my “quote of the year”). But the fact is, many of the major national and regional outlets that in the past were the gatekeepers of new content (in particular radio, retail & TV) have ether been homogenized in such a way that they are ineffective at presenting new music to consumers, they are now irrelevant as tastemaking outlets, or both. There’s a whole new world of music promotion that is rising up from the ashes of the old guard that is primarily user-generated: thousands of blogs (Brooklyn Vegan and Day Trotter are excellent outlets focused on indie music) and online radio stations (Pandora is leading the pack) are doing a fantastic job at discovering and promoting new music. There are more outlets then ever to hear/promote new music, they might just not be quite as obvious as they were 10 years ago.
All this being said, I do love seeing quality music from real “developing” artists playing real songs on national TV. I got turned onto Feist from the work she has done with Broken Social Scene, an amazing collective out of Toronto. She’s got a new solo record out and a new song, (“1,2,3,4”) that was heavily promoted in the new iPod commercial. Check her out performing on the Today Show yesterday:
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Mike
Do you think that Ms. Feist would be playing the Today show without the Ipod commercial?
Hey Dave,
Probably not. But she’s definitely kicking on all cylinders with the marketing Interscope is doing for this new record, which I assume brought her to the attention of Apple. Certainly her World Cafe performance on XPN (syndicated nationally via NPR, one of the few viable traditional radio outlets, and one which is completely in the realm of possibility for other unsigned artists) helped, as did her Letterman performance and full page spread in Rolling Stone:
http://www.listentofeist.com/images/rs-nov-2007-01.jpg
Not to mention a serious international tour, and two previous records from which she was able to build a solid fan base (who are active online). I think the ipod commercial (awesome video) was the tipping point for her for sure, but she’s been working hard for years and is nailing the full integrated marketing campaign with this record.
Thanks for the comment!
Mike
I always wanted to know who sang that catchy song on the iPod commercial. I agree with you Mike that for those who don’t know the genre of music..myself included. The commercial spotlighted her and she’ll be more likely to even gain greater attention and curiosity of her previous work.
I have to admit that I’m guilty of saying the “there is no good music out there,” mainly because I hear so much redundancy, focus on materialism and no innovation. Thats what made 80’s music for me the best because it would be catchy and on some real tips. I can still sing word for word some 80’s songs but can’t even remember a song that was #1 on the charts a year ago.
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