Do Music Blogs Matter Anymore in 2020?
Pretty Much Amazing. 2dopeboyz. Fake Shore Drive.
I think everyone who was an avid hip-hop fan remembers discovering everyone from Chiddy Bang to Chance, the Rapper on the landing page for one of these sites. Whether you were listening to Wiz Khalifa's Kush & OJ on the Datpiff web player or you were discussing Kanye West's latest G.O.O.D. Friday release on KanyeToThe - it was an excellent period to be involved in the online hip-hop community as a listener.
But in 2020, do blogs have the same impact? With social media playing such a large role in democratizing the relationship between artist & fan, do curators or journalists still play an essential role in the industry?
I believe so, yes!
To understand this, we need to circle back to 2010. Blogs were finally providing independent artists with an avenue to reach potential new fans.
“Artwork” by Jake Standley haha
But breaking through the noise as an artist was still a difficult task. For the first time, there were centralized locations that fans could find new music that they liked, curated by faces they recognized - artists just had an additional layer of tastemakers to interact with.
For some artists, like Chiddy Bang, the blog era suited them. It gave them the platform to break out of the local Philadelphia music scene after meeting at Drexel University back in 2009.
Unfortunately, as the culture shifted away from these blogs being the definitive tastemakers, Chiddy Bang ended up parting in 2014, with both members releasing solo work afterward.
Simultaneously, some artists, like Mac Miller or Tyler, the Creator, were able to leverage the momentum they gained during the blog era to create careers out of music.
So what allowed these career artists to succeed while so many others fail? Well, primarily - having quality music is vital. But also, these artists showed legitimate growth in every project. In contrast, some artists spent the blog era years chasing headlines and pioneering 'viral content' in hip-hop culture. Others spent those years honing their craft and finding a way to appeal to the true tastemakers that were listening.
That's the secrete behind music blogs. They were never as large as Rap Caviar is today. And they never stood a chance against syndicated radio stations, reaching tens-of-millions of Americans every day. But what music blogs did do, and still do, is reach the tastemakers of the generation.
As I discussed in the article last week, not all fans should be valued equally. To be clear, after reading this, don't treat some of your fans poorly or lesser. But instead, spend more time understanding what audience you are trying to reach through a specific pipeline.
For example, if you are putting together a music video and planning to hire a PR representative & pitch to formal blogs or publications, like Billboard or Rolling Stone, make sure the music video represents a polished & cohesive body of work. While you'll likely be spending $5-$10,000 on the entire campaign to reach fewer people than a Facebook Ad - the people you're reaching are probably employed by the industry and are always on the lookout for professional work.
On the other hand, if you're trying to put together a video that will appeal to the TikTok generation with an ambitious influencer campaign - you want to make sure you're spreading your campaign dollars over several videos, each with possible viral moments. You want to appeal to someone with a shortened attention span, which is looking to be entertained. This viewer is likely someone interested in your music genre, but that might be where their expertise ends.
And while reading Twitter, data analytics and maybe even conventional wisdom might tell you that the TikTok campaign is a better investment - likely due to the number of people that TikTok lets you reach. I'm here to say that this is not necessarily the case.
We’ve lost in 2020, with our wealth of cost-per-click, views & conversion analytics, an understanding of the type of person you are reaching. I remember Felly telling me that "Shadows" or the "White" music video because they're some of his least viewed works. But I remember that, back in 2016, every single A&R, talent buyer, etc. told us that those songs were the ones that got them interested in Fel in the first place. In fact! It was "Leave in the Morning," the fifth-largest song from This Shit Comes in Waves that got us our initial deal with Sony RED for the Young Fel EP.
The point is - just because you only got one click on your ad doesn't necessarily mean the campaign was a failure. That one person who clicked through might be showing all of their friends. They might be sharing on a private Twitter, IG Story, Reddit, who knows! But the 'analytics' that we see from Spotify, Facebook, Google doesn’t tell us any of this.
One blog I check out regularly for music discovery (and you should too) is Before the Data. Their name alludes to everything I'm discussing here.
As a culture, we need to spend less time worrying about descriptive or historical analytics that only shows us one side of the story (Maybe I will write next week's article about this!). We need to focus on creating quality art & growing with our fans or audiences. That is the best way to stick around for the long term.
Lifelong fans don't come from algorithmic playlists or viral videos - they come from organic, real-life experiences with your music. Whether that's a live show or your song coming out of car speakers during a road trip - it does not matter.
Music blogs in 2020 are no longer the cultural deities they were back in 2010, but that doesn't mean they are irrelevant. I think they have the potential to provide more value than ever if you're willing to invest the time to understand their audience & grow with them.
