7 ms·

Well there are also people like Jonathan Coulton (the guy who sings "code monkey") who started with nothing and built a fan base. Also he did the ending song fo

• eli 15y ago
  No doubt there are examples of people who built a fanbase online from nothing. But I'm sure it helps a lot if you happen to write songs that appeal to nerds and then get featured on slashdot as a sort of novelty act. I don't see that working as well if you write earnest alt-folk love songs instead of songs about Mountain Dew. Incidentally, there was a story about Coulton on NPR not long ago [1]. [1] http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/14/136279162/an-internet-rock-star-tells-all http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/05/14/136279162/an-inter...
  • Goronmon 15y ago
    But I'm sure it helps a lot if you happen to write songs that appeal to nerds and then get featured on slashdot as a sort of novelty act. Isn't that kind of the whole point though? You can't just be a no-name, release some music that is very similar to a large number of artists in a popular genre of music, and then expect to hit it big.
    • lookhard 15y ago
      But he worked so hard, don't you get it?
  • shawnaroo 15y ago
    The internet is not restricted to nerds anymore. Sure, your average musician isn't likely to get a mention on Slashdot, but there are about a zillion different forums/blogs/etc out there covering a zillion different topics, and if your music appeals to even a small subset of them you can get some pretty cheap advertising. And if your music is good, you can start to build off of that.