Josh Preston spotted this on the guardian.co.uk site and thought you should see it.
To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/sep/23/music-social-networking-promotion-blogs
Behind the music: The winners and losers of social networking promotion
Some musicians take years to finish a song. When we expect them to bash out blogs too we risk alienating talent
Helienne Lindvall
Friday September 24 2010
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/sep/23/music-social-networking-promotion-blogs
An artist I know recently signed to a major. The label wanted him to be active on social networking sites, to blog and so on, because apparently that's how you build a fan base these days. Within weeks, he was a nervous wreck. He spent hours sitting in front of his computer, slowly breaking into a cold sweat at the thought of each word he wrote being dissected, with no chance of revision once it had entered cyberspace, potentially spreading across Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites.
He wanted to be witty, candid and sincere. He also felt the need to be a bit controversial, since that would be one way to attract attention to himself and, hopefully, his music. Yet that would also guarantee those indelible words would remain in the public eye ...
So stressed was this musician that he's now posted to a blog saying: "This is the last time I do this." Why? It had taken him years to distil his emotions into 10 songs, sweating over every word to make sure it divulged how he really felt, knowing that it would be part of his legacy forever. Now he was expected to write 500 of them in a week ? preferably in a day.
In the magnificent volume Songwriters On Songwriting [http://www.amazon.com/Songwriters-Songwriting-Expanded-Paul-Zollo/dp/0306812657" title="Songwriters On Songwriting], in which Paul Zollo interviews legendary songwriters about their craft, Leonard Cohen [http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/zollo.html" title="Leonard Cohen] describes his creative process: "It takes me months and months of full employment to break the code of the song ... I try everything to ignore it, try to repress it, try to get high, try to get intoxicated, try to get sober, all the versions of myself that I can summon are summoned to participate in this project, this work force." He proceeds with a tale of how it took him a decade to write Anthem [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zKk76YkF1U" title="Anthem], offering detailed explanations as to why he chose one word over another.
If Cohen started out today, would he survive as an artist? Would his songs become such a part of our cultural fabric that even someone such as Simon Cowell would pick one as the X Factor winner's single? Would he be expected to fund his next record by cooking a meal ? or even doing a striptease [http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/princesssuperstar" title="do a striptease] ? at a fan's house, or singing down the second-hand iPhone [http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/836324104/ukulelehead-is-out-webcast-party-is-today-6-pm" title="second-hand iPhone] they bought from him for $1,000?
What if you just want to ? and are only good at ? making music? "Some people just want to build and sell typewriters, and there's nothing wrong with that," says Mike Masnick of TechDirt [http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i68e64a3cf27273505d02d59eabedae01" title="Mike Masnick of TechDirt]. "But they shouldn't then complain when people aren't interested in buying the typewriters ... [or] be upset when they are branded as archaic because they're trying to sell something in a market that has moved on." Cohen is not a businessman (though his former manager was ordered to pay him $9.5m after he sued her for siphoning money [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/mar/04/arts.usa" title="sued her for siphoning ?5m] from him, so I guess he eventually learned). He's a damn good songwriter. Who knows whether he'd have been able to hone his craft if he'd been forced to work on his business acumen and social networking skills at the same time.
My friend with the blogging troubles may still be able to get his music out there because he has the marketing machine of a major to fall back on, but what about the musicians who don't? What if they're not part of the "artistic middle class" touted by TopSpin [http://www.topspinmedia.com/blog/" title="TopSpin] and other online music marketers, who consider themselves entrepreneurs and not just artists who create art for art's sake?
I recently heard a Danish band called Choir of Young Believers [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU_LRUkjbKk" title="Choir of Young Believers], who fall into that category. They may never get the Twitter retinue of an Amanda Palmer [http://twitter.com/amandapalmer" title="Amanda Palmer] ? who has nearly half a million followers ? but their song Hollow Talk [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy7yuj-UrNI" title="Hollow Talk] (which only has 23,000 views on YouTube, at the time of writing) completely stopped me in my tracks, sounding like a melancholic Arcade Fire doing the soundtrack for Wallander [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkv2ITs4TrE" title="Wallander]. I don't want them to write blogposts; I just want them to be able to keep writing songs that transport me to a much more beautiful place when I'm enduring the London underground at rush hour. And no, I don't own a typewriter.
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