Over the past several years, the dynamics of music marketing and promotion — both locally and nationally — have drastically shifted under the tectonic changes in the old school music industry and its marketing institutions. Corporate radio playlists by the likes of Clear Channel have done away with diversity on the airwaves, while the once-novel MTV is hardly an option to sort through new music. Today’s music connoisseurs often resort to digital downloading both legal and illegal, while artists themselves are turning to empowering internet tools like MySpace and Purevolume in order to bridge this new gap between producers and consumers.
Fans now undertake their own epic searches for new sounds listening to hours of music and reading opinion-based underground music sites and blogs directing them to the next big thing. In fact, DCist recently discussed the phenomenon of music opinion becoming dogma, and literally making and breaking bands, as in the case of Pitchfork. There have been success stories in this new generation of music commerce — see, for example, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah — while others such as local rockers Army of Me have had their hard work and relentless touring rewarded with a major label record contract.
Still, many music fans in the Capitol Region have voiced their dissatisfaction with the DC music scene, often citing a lack of variety and feeling alienated with seemingly few new music options.
