If you were to ask the record companies, and for that matter many of their signed artists, they’d tell you technology has put a serious dent in the ease with which they can now generate mega bucks.
They’d have you believe times are tough, and in some ways they are right.
Fact is, physical album sales have in deed been in steady decline since the advent of digital downloads, both legal and otherwise.
The rise of individual track sales has also meant that the recording of actual full-length albums is now a costly proposition.
There are many other ‘‘poor me’’ arguments that we’ll leave for another time and space.
On the flipside, and one fact the companies may not be so quick to admit, is that widespread online accessibility, and the reality of the global village, has stiffened competition for consumer ears.
Now, artists — especially the savvy ones — don’t need to rely on the weight of the company machine to help spread their brand and have their music heard.
The musically gifted — those with the good songs — now have the chance to shine in ways like never before, without the hefty beef of the corporate machine pawing over them.
Take the case of independent female-fronted Danish rock act Forever Still (pictured below), who at just three EPs into a career, and via marketing of their own design, have managed to get their music onto my iPod’s most highly rotated playlist in recent weeks.
Forever Still, first appeared to me as a new follower of my Twitter account.
Why? I’m still not certain, but their arrival was enough though to spark my curiosity to click a few buttons and check out their webpage.
This of course then led me to the band’s ‘Bandcamp’ profile, where I was introduced to their music.
I was blown away.
Score ... goal to Forever Still, who can now count at least one Australian on their list of followers.
Before the great musical consumer revolution, there’s more than a good chance that Forever Still and I would never have crossed paths.
It would have taken a hip European magazine with an ‘unearthed’ section dedicated to showcasing new bands to carry a mention of them for them to have even rated a blip on my radar.
That would assume of course, that I was able to find the said European magazine at my local newsagent, and also assuming that I actually read that particular page.
Then, assuming the stars aligned, the likelihood of me having the chance to actually hear them in the pre-internet world would have been slim at best.
But now, thanks to the wonders of cables and highspeed data exchange, I can not only enjoy their music, but now find myself — like an excited schoolboy — wanting to encourage others to also delve into their realm.
Welcome to the new reality of global musical marketing.
Of course, another aspect of this glorious new world is the ease with which we can now converse globally.
Needless to say, I took hold of the chance to fire off some questions to Forever Still lead singer, Maja Schonning, who gratefully accepted the opportunity.
