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So technology helps the bands immensely.

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 The question that challenges the end user however, is: Who is the filter and how does one possibly navigate the vast quantities of content out there?

Learn Our record label put out one of 2011’s most blogged about and critically acclaimed records, Nerves Junior’s “ [|As Bright as Your Night Light] .” The hype was deafening. The band’s debut performance at the CMJ Festival in New York seemed to be on every must-see list.

“the ills of the hype machine -- an overconfident rock 'n' roll mentality built out of blogspeak rather than the slog of the tour.” The obsession in the music industry today seems to be about “discovery” and tracking what is “trending.” Discovery used to be the purview of the folks who did the research, who made the mixtapes and went to the dive bars and saw the bands no one had ever heard of.

However, since what is trending may well just be something that has been hyped enough to break through the filters into our virtual conscience, the important issue is whether the talent behind it has staying power.

It is certainly easier for an act or performer to be “experienced” quickly by millions of folks through technology today, but we have to remember that old technology like television also brought the Beatles to some 73 million people on one 1964 night during the Ed Sullivan show.

So it is not necessarily technology that makes the difference, but the way technology has compressed the time it takes to experience mass exposure.

There are acts on our label whose records we released before we ever met them. We saw, we experienced; we heard them and their brand online. We then e-mailed a contract to them, having never actually attended a concert of theirs or having met them. Digital filmmaking technology has facilitated making music videos, which are one of our most cost-effective ways of marketing our bands. One of the [|$200 digital videos] from [|The Pass] , another band we represent, has been seen over 200,000 times online.

<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The sheer numbers of “humanity hours” spent viewing and rejecting irrelevant content streams is horrifying to think about (not to mention the hours Americans spend watching dreck).

<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Despite the cash and machinations behind her, will that negatively impact the chance in the future of truly independent artists to be discovered without audience cynicism preventing that?

<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Lana Del Rey will legacy be that she was the act that made everyone realize the Internet was no longer about discovery but about commercial manipulation.

<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia,serif;">The way for the modern musician to succeed is to remain true to his brand, his identity, his music, and his message. If the music is also good, the filters of Everyman will help the artist ascend and enjoy a long-term career.

<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia,serif;">It is better for a band to be slowly on the way up and still to be discovered, than trying to regain a position that was once garnered on the back of hype. <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> =<span style="background: white; margin-bottom: 13.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 13.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 25.5pt; font-weight: normal;"> =