A few days from now they are going to open up the polls for ACM Entertainer and New Artist of the Year. No doubt fans will be doing whatever they can do to help their choices win; I've already seen posts and tweets from people urging their friends and followers to vote. More so from people campaigning for New Artist - not seeing too many people talking about Entertainer yet, but I'm sure that'll pick up. I have a bad feeling, however, that the race for New Artist is going to be a rough one. It's bums me out to see people trashing another artist as a way to promote their own. Saying that, I believe that the majority of fans will be perfectly respectful. It's just a small percentage that won't, but they'll probably be the most vocal. Or at least those kinds of posts always have a way of getting my attention.
So what does this have to do with my topic, you may or may not be asking yourself? Well it has me thinking about fan behavior and the amount of power fans have. In the years that I've been a country fan, I've been a member of all sorts of fan clubs and message boards and have met all kinds of fellow fans. I've always been interested in seeing what artists become crazy popular and which ones don't; which ones burn for a while and which ones never quite get the shot they deserve. There are so many reasons why an artist might fail or succeed, many of which don't involve the fans at all. Some of which I could never begin to understand. But while there's other variables at work, there's no denying that an artist cannot succeed without fans.
An artist can have the best band(s) in the world, be on a label that supports and cares about what they're doing. They can have the best management team in existence and the greatest lawyers. They can have the right people doing all of their art for their merchandise and CDs and they can have the most talented web designer in charge of their website. All of whom can do wonderful things for their career. But unless they have people buying their music and going to their shows, all of the above won't amount to anything. It only works with the fans. You'd be hard pressed to find an artist, especially a country artist, who would dispute that fact. Believe me when I say that they know they live or die by the fans. Fans have so much power. I believe that fans understand this.
But I do not believe that they understand just how much. In this series or whatever you want to call it I'm going to discuss all the ways that I feel the fans help or hurt their favorite artists. Some of these things are going to be very obvious. For example, we help our artists when we buy their music. We help them by buying their merchandise and we help them by going to see them in concert. These are the no brainers. But we help in other ways. And we have the power of hurting them in other ways - none of which I believe are done on purpose. This is not meant to make fans feel bad or guilty or whatever. This is not meant to be insulting in any way; rather, I want to try and make people aware of these things so that they can either keep doing them (if it helps) and try not to do them (if it hurts). My guess is that this'll end up being a three part series, including this post. I'll do one on the way we help and one on the ways we hurt.
So be on the lookout. Lots of other things on the horizon as well if I can get myself writing and posting them. I meant to have this one up a couple of days ago, but no matter. Comments are always welcomed, so if you have anything to say, go right ahead. Thanks for reading!
An artist can have the best band(s) in the world, be on a label that supports and cares about what they're doing. They can have the best management team in existence and the greatest lawyers. They can have the right people doing all of their art for their merchandise and CDs and they can have the most talented web designer in charge of their website. All of whom can do wonderful things for their career. But unless they have people buying their music and going to their shows, all of the above won't amount to anything. It only works with the fans. You'd be hard pressed to find an artist, especially a country artist, who would dispute that fact. Believe me when I say that they know they live or die by the fans. Fans have so much power. I believe that fans understand this.
But I do not believe that they understand just how much. In this series or whatever you want to call it I'm going to discuss all the ways that I feel the fans help or hurt their favorite artists. Some of these things are going to be very obvious. For example, we help our artists when we buy their music. We help them by buying their merchandise and we help them by going to see them in concert. These are the no brainers. But we help in other ways. And we have the power of hurting them in other ways - none of which I believe are done on purpose. This is not meant to make fans feel bad or guilty or whatever. This is not meant to be insulting in any way; rather, I want to try and make people aware of these things so that they can either keep doing them (if it helps) and try not to do them (if it hurts). My guess is that this'll end up being a three part series, including this post. I'll do one on the way we help and one on the ways we hurt.
So be on the lookout. Lots of other things on the horizon as well if I can get myself writing and posting them. I meant to have this one up a couple of days ago, but no matter. Comments are always welcomed, so if you have anything to say, go right ahead. Thanks for reading!
Comments
Post a Comment