The playlist era has definitely stirred up the dynamics within the music sphere. With artists scrambling to get meaningful placements, the track itself has become the foremost unit of communication. Here are our thoughts on music blogs.
While listeners enjoy the filtered, continuous flow of new music on various streaming platforms – oftentimes they are left in the dark in terms of real, biographical depth or background info on the people behind the sound.
Short-biographies can only go so far. The context needed to understand is overlooked. Musicians are – by nature of the distributive means – reduced to single tracks. Maybe even left nameless in an ocean of content.
In this we see an opportunity, of music media to emerge, or re-emerge, and fill a much needed informative gap. There are several reasons why music discovery trends might dip back into the realm of blogs and information aggregators like Hype Machine. Let’s dive into a few:
100% human curation
With blogs and related media you be assured that the music selection is 100% handled via human curation. The quality then heavily relies on the taste and aesthetic preferences of a given set of individuals. But it still means – submitted music is actually listened to, taken into account.
This can offer advantages on multiple levels. If music is accepted, an artist or management team can be rest assured that it lives up to tastemaker standards. It also acts as a solid indicator that the music has a fresh edge, or fulfills a certain niche’s styles and qualities.
It also ignites the chance of developing solid, long-lasting media relationships. If an editor falls in love with a sound or vision, chances are hight that he or she will support a continuous endeavor. With single track submissions on streaming platforms that’s far from realistic – each track has to find its own, new path. Especially with algorithmically designed playlists.
Biographical depth
The increased accessibility of the streaming market has led to an influx of vast new music and artistic talent. And while this broadens the consumer’s choice and perspective, it also makes it much harder to build a solid bond with a given artist. There are just too many stunning personalities out there, too many unique biographies. The consequence is – the consumer diverges his or her attention away from the artist, towards the song, or curated list.
Blogs, and music media in general, solve this problem by not only pre-selecting a daily dose of fresh, relevant artistry, they also provide much needed biographical depth. This can especially help emerging artists give context to a body of work, or spark interest in releases that might drop. Re-connecting songs to authors, and acting as “cultural glue” is definitely a major potential and strength of contemporary music media.
Multi medial content hubs
As opposed to the platform-strategy of locking users into a consumer’s cosmos, blogs and music media open up a broad range of interlinking possibilities and content crossover. The very fabric of online media allows for the aggregation of different content types. Be it text, audio, video or all together.
This advantage in format may be easily overlooked, or even taken for granted. That’s just the way the hyperlinked, cultural web works – it’s a HUGE advantage over “single-media” hubs. If curated right, a single blog feature can generate a handful of leads, directed to multiple external sources.
The fact that music blogs don’t completely lock you in to their content scheme is not only morally decent, it also opens the possibility to spreading a broad range of media snippets. The motto – being let the listener decide upon how she or he wants to dive into an artistic cosmos.
Relevancy Roundup
The way we see it – music media, as found via Hype Machine and SubmitHub, will always benefitial. Creating genuine relevance, by curating and displaying biographical depth, is a bedrock of any creative culture.
Even though most artists have their eyes set on tasty playlist placements, they should lay equal amounts of focus on getting a solid blog and media standing.
Relationships are built via context and meaning. Great editors harness both, and fuse it to a valuable content mix.
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