The Unheard Music Gets a Lift From Word-of-Blog

The flip-side to yesterday's article on the death of the critic comes to us via The New York Times (by way of brooklynvegan).

The decline of the monolithic, professional critic has, perhaps not surprisingly, coincided with the rise of a swarm of amateur cheerleaders on the internet, each boosting his or her own personal tastes to their own relatively small audiences, but this whisper of many small voices, taken together, can roar. Take the case of The Hysterics, for example:

J. P. Connolly, a science teacher in Brooklyn, heard a song by one of his students, a rail-thin 15-year-old named Oliver Ignatius, who is the lead singer for a band called the Hysterics. Mr. Connolly, who had bonded with his student over independent music, loved Mr. Ignatius's song and posted it on Music for Robots, an influential blog he helps run.

That's where Joseph Patel, an MTV News producer and regular reader of the blog, heard the song. He also loved it, and decided to put the Hysterics on the air, despite the fact that they had done little more than practice in drummer Geoff Turbeville's parents' bedroom.

After the segment was broadcast on MTV, Music for Robots found itself with a new audience: teenage girls, who had come to declare their love for the Hysterics. The band is now in talks with a major label.
Many labels view blogs as nothing more than free publicity, but their creator's genuine enthusiasm can often reach potential fans better than a million billboards. They bring something to the table that "word of p2p", more popular than ever, doesn't:

One difference between peer-to-peer networks and blogs is that while the former depends on anonymity, the latter fosters a sense of community. Most bloggers exhort readers to buy the CD's of bands they like, and their enthusiastic posts can bring prominence to bands that otherwise might not get much attention.
And the digital echo chamber can act as informal market research for labels increasingly afraid to take risks, assuring them that the audience for a particular artist is there:

Adam Shore, label manager at Vice Records, said he fell in love with the Norwegian pop star Annie, who was at the time unknown in the United States, but was skittish about putting out her album until he saw the positive word of mouth it was receiving on blogs, as well as on the online music magazine Pitchfork.

"Then I knew it wasn't just me - that there was this whole community of people who feel the way I do," says Mr. Shore. "It made me feel more comfortable moving forward. Blogs are this amazing resource for us."

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/news/music/9158/The-Unheard-Music-Gets-a-Lift-From-Word-of-Blog/