In a DIY musician Facebook group , one musician was adamant that DIY artists shouldn’t be making podcasts or other such types of content over and above their music.  His opinion was that the more content a musician makes to accompany their music, the more their authenticity is undermined. He suggested that this leads to the artist’s musical world becoming delegitmised.  

I’ve come across a few DIY artists with these sorts of views, and here’s my take. Creating a ‘world’ from music and intrigue alone is a very hard sell. I would argue that if you want to set about creating a world the best way to do that would be through the use of the type of content this artist was dismissing!

Think about it. If you want your audience to know the thought processes, emotions and beliefs that help shape and give birth to your music, the best way to do that would be in a series of video diaries, podcasts, blog entries etc. In the old paradigm as artists we had to wait for journalists to ask us questions to discover more about the origins of our music; now we can cut out the middle and give this information direct to the fans themselves. This sort of content doesn’t destroy the mythos of your music, it actually sets about creating it.

Oh and that DIY musician who was privileging authenticity over marketing?  I did some digging and his current music video has a mere 41 views on YouTube and his artist page has 76 Facebook followers.  So much for his version of authenticity!!!

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