The music industry is struggling. This isn’t a new concept however, there have always been starving artists hoping and praying for their big break. They dream about having that one breakout album or single but sadly the chances of that are becoming lower as the years progress. With an increasingly big music scene and decreasingly low album sales, how is it possible for a band to make it big anymore? Or, more importantly, how do they stay keep their fame and avoid the “one hit wonder” label. One way this is achieved is through public relations, or music publicity, as it is referred to while dealing with music.
Music publicists have very important jobs in regards to gaining a band’s fan base. A publicist does all they can to create and uphold a certain image for artists. They often get a hold of press to promote the band they work for. “They may also consider the importance and necessity of career opportunities for their clients, such as working with charities and non-profit organizations, going on tour, promotional appearances, or interviews. As one of the lead marketing professionals for an artist’s projects, the music publicist often helps promote tours, albums, and campaigns for these opportunities to increase exposure and generate sales.” (Music Publicist: Job Description, para. 6)
A band doesn’t need to be big or widely known in order to have their own publicist. Riot Act Media is a well-established public relations firm that describes themselves as full of “fan first” publicists. They are currently working with many artists, as well as the record company Topshelf Records. When I saw this while looking through public relations firms that focus on music I was extremely surprised. I am a huge fan of many of the bands off of Topshelf’s label such as: Sorority Noise, Donovan Wolfington, and Lite. Why I was confused that Riot Act was working with them is because all of these bands have pretty small fan-bases. In fact the biggest of these bands, Sorority Noise, only has about 30,000 likes on Facebook. To put that in perspective, a well known band such as Blink-182 has about 10,500,000 Facebook likes.
What I learned from my research into PR firms that focus specifically on music publicity is that it doesn’t matter how big your band is. What is truly important is how you go about gaining fans. Many bands think that if they just put out good music, then people will eventually find it. However, it doesn’t work this way at all. With the giant music industry that exists today, bands need to do much more than just stand out with original music. A smart band will collaborate with many others to get their music out there. Working with a record label, manager, publicist, and many others helps boost publicity greatly and is extremely important. So, if a band is considering building their image to be something great, I highly recommend working with a music publicist. They help promote not only music, but also what a band stands for and helps get that known to many potential fans.
Markell, A. (2013). Public relations in the music business: How publicists continue to improve a changing industry (Unpublished master’s thesis). Thesis / Dissertation ETD. Retrieved October 30, 2016, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1400471884?pq-origsite=summon
Music Publicist: Job Description, Salary and Career Outlook. (n.d.). Retrieved November 02, 2016, from http://study.com/articles/Music_Publicist_Job_Description_Salary_and_Career_Outlook.html
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