Edinburgh Napier University

  Recent years have witnessed significant changes to the methods by which artists connect with their fans. Where in the previous century these connections were primarily made through touring, media promotion and the physical distribution of product, the Internet has offered up a burgeoning range of alternatives.
The novelty of digital dissemination platforms is waning and an appetite for more direct and tangible artist/audience connection is emerging. Where iTunes and the like have afforded everyone the possibility of getting ‘signed’, the music of independent artists is often lost in the noise of a saturated marketplace. Social media, too, has begun to lose its charm and efficacy due to commercialisation and exhaustive applications.
This climate, in which we are reappraising our ‘love affair’ with the digital marketplace, charges us with innovating responses to the requirements of internet-weary audiences. The rise in farmers-market sensibility amongst consumers is being manifested in artisanal product, imbued with a sense of authenticity through ‘denomination of origin’. A similar mind-set in the marketing of music might provide an alternative to the seemingly homogenised array of goods available in the Internet’s virtual shop-window.
The Internet has become synonymous at best modest financial return for the musician. This paper, therefore, seeks to fresh methods of engagement with the instruments of digital interconnectedness. To profitably connect with our audience, we might begin to rethink the nature of the products that we offer and the terms by which we offer them.