Tapes ‘n Tapes. Beirut. TV on the Radio. Cold War Kids. Lupe Fiasco. Lily Allen. Birdmonster. Grizzly Bear. Sufjan Stevens. The Knife. Clipse. Destroyer. The Hold Steady. Joanna Newsom.
These were, by a certain measure, the most important new musicians of 2006. Heard half of them? If you’re a casual or moderately engaged pop fan, possibly no. If you’re involved in the music industry, you know the names and might have heard some music. But if you’re one of those people creating “buzz,” you not only know these artists–you might have touted one as “the only band that matters.”
In 1979, the Clash’s record label, Epic, coined “the only band that matters” to describe England’s brainiest punks to American record buyers. Similar excitement has greeted such acts as the Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, Tupac Shakur and Kurt Cobain. When these stars touched down, the world hummed with excitement. The buzz felt real.
Today, it’s hard to know when buzz is more than just noise. In an age of accelerated connection, the buzz around music has intensified. The growing ease of musicmaking and distribution resulted in 60,000 releases (that’s in the U.S. alone) last year. Downloadable music multiplies that number like bunnies in spring. And pop’s historical embrace of novelty and amateurism means that few heavy gates stop the flow.
The only criterion for buzz today often seems like buzz itself.
“To me, ‘buzz’ was always about, something really great is happening, don’t you want to check it out?” said Jay Babcock, editor of the L.A.-based magazine Arthur. “That’s different than what I hear now, which is, this is going to be big, don’t you want to check it out?”
Babcock calls what’s happening “buzz overload,” but the feeling might better be dubbed “buzz vertigo”: a balance disorder that makes it hard to proceed confidently through pop’s ever-expanding archipelago of Web sites, blogs, magazines, podcasts and other outlets.
“You don’t have to go to a record store or go out on a Tuesday night to see an opening band to get in on things,” said Scott Plagenhoef, managing editor of Chicago-based pitchforkmedia.com, the indie-rock-leaning site that’s often cited as a source of today’s groundswells.
Digital media marketing firms focus entirely on servicing the Web. Bloggers need content and often enjoy the recognition.
“Bands such as Birdmonster, Cold War Kids and Sound Team are relentlessly marketed to bloggers, just this never-ending stream of e-mails from flacks,” wrote Matthew Perpetua, who pioneered the mp3 blog with his Fluxblog, in an e-mail. “It’s depressing that all you need to catch on among the newer mp3 blogs is to barrage them with PR e-mails.”
Andy Slater, president of Capitol Records, a major label that’s signed several “blog buzz” artists, including OK Go and Lily Allen, said he doesn’t think much has changed in 30 years.
“Somebody you think is cool is telling you something’s cool,” he said, “and you’re going somewhere to check it out.”
The best strategy for breaking a musician, said Slater, is to make sure the offering is solid.
“Lily has all of the elements of a star,” he said. “She’s smart, she’s talented, she has a great voice. She has a mission statement that’s clear: She is saying something for women under 25. I think she has succeeded online not just because that world is there, but because she represents things that are reflecting the attitudes of that world.”
