My wife has been reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. From what I’ve heard from her and other people, it’s a pretty good book. I found an example of what it talks about last night.
I got the Guerilla Music Marketing Handbook for Christmas and decided to crack it open last night. One of the first things I read encouraged me to setup my artist account on Last.fm, so I checked it out. I’m browsing around and I see one of the featured videos is “Amaranth” by this band called Nightwish. The video button featured the lead singer, an attractive woman with long black hair and what looks like a metal band behind her. I’m thinking…Nightwish sounds like the name of a metal band and she’s dressed in all black…Evanescence knock-off? So I click on the video.
The first thing I notice is how professional the video is…definitely not done by some broke indie band. Ends up this band is from Finland and works with Roadrunner Records. Then I notice the music. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wasn’t thinking 80’s hair-metal. The chorus follows traditional pop songwriting with a catchy melody, but the rest delves into what the band calls symphonic metal. While I’m not a huge fan of the style, I couldn’t turn away. The whole time I’m thinking, “People still listen to this? There are bands still writing this stuff?” But it hit me this morning, there are still blues artists, there are still rockabilly artists, there are still funk artists, why not 80’s hair-metal? Most of the original artists are all still touring and playing anyway.
I never would have thought that “new” genres or styles would just stick around, but it appears there is a market for every style imaginable. The key is finding which one works for you and doing it well. You could very well end up playing music for the rest of your life.
