A guide to PR and email exhaustion for independent musicians

Kristel Jax
Toronto, ON
::web/words::
Illustration: Robert Ondzik

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From the perpetually cycling inbox of Kristel Jax:

It’s getting harder to be a band on the internet when it should be getting easier. A rigid and largely indefinable force reduces art to economics, and the supply of independently produced music far outweighs demand. The market is tired.

Well-intentioned music fans and media have become so inundated with gimmicks, hype bands, big bands, new bands, reuniting bands, and disappointing bands that any voice trying to emerge is treated with perhaps more suspicion than ever before. Several factors contribute to this fatigue, the largest of which is time. There are not enough hours in a lifetime to listen to every Soundcloud stream. To watch every video. To reply to every email. To read every email.

When I say the market is tired, I mean the appetite for new work is being suppressed by cynicism. When the internet allows blogs, websites, and PR/marketing companies to call masses of upstart bands with half an idea and no stage presence important, essential, or interesting (increasingly often for a price), it’s easy to distrust the machine we’ve built and to lose interest in seeking … Read More »