NY Times: Little-Known Bands Get Lift Through Word-of-Blog

Selected quotes from today’s New York Times article titled “Little-Known Bands Get Lift Through Word-of-Blog.” (via Coolfer)

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“This is how the Internet was supposed to help music: last year, 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.”

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“And now Mr. Connolly and his Music for Robots peers are attempting a coup of their own. The blog recently released a compilation CD, Music for Robots Vol. 1, which features 19 unsigned and independent-label bands, including the Hysterics.”

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“Only a handful of music blogs, with names like Fluxblog, Stereogum and Largehearted Boy, have any influence, but even those still have a long way to go to fundamentally alter the landscape of the music industry.”

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The Decemberists, a popular independent band from Portland, Ore., recently complained that much of its new album had been posted on blogs before the album was released, and implored bloggers to take the songs down.”

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“Music for Robots has the credibility of a very hip record store,” says Glenn Peoples, who runs a popular music blog called Coolfer. Good music blogs, he said, let consumers get the word out about bands that are legitimately good.”

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“For labels, blogs can be fertile testing grounds. 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.”

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“But the most significant force to emerge for unknown bands, in fact, has nothing to do with the Internet. Starbucks, the coffee retailer, has begun selling CD’s in its stores, and the experiment has proved a success.”

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Read the whole article at the NY Times

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