The hyper-promoting band next door? Probably not.

The author taking a break from promotion.

From decades of dealing with bands and artists as a producer, one thing that has struck me is that there seems to be *less* aggressive promotion going on these days - and certainly less than all the commentary about new-media tools for artists would have one believe.

Could this be an illusion? I've been playing a lot more live shows and touring with my own band than I was in the 80's, so that might give me a different view. Here are some possible reasons, some of them contradictory:

There is simply now, more clear evidence of an artist's lax promotion, than in the old days - ie: an official website that hasn't been updated in a year.

So nothing has really changed, and the proportion of artists that actually hustle, is, and has always been a minority.

Record labels, small and large, used to do a lot of the promotion - providing a division of labor.

Hence, even artists without a personality inclined to promotion, or the social skills, would be promoted

There's a generational difference in attitudes between artists from my early era (the 80's), and now

Hustling/promoting was viewed as "being serious" and with the underdog status of independent music, had more social value. But once there was a possible payoff with independent music, there was a taboo, and suspicion of aggressive promotion.

All the new-media and networking tools are more difficult to use, and use skillfully, and with more quality than it would seem

This is nothing new under the sun. Regardless of the tools, promotion requires skill and instinct. We simply don't all have that - see my previous point about division of labor - but yet we all have to DIY it ..DO-IT-YOURSEL.F

Certain networking tools, like Facebook, work remarkably well

So either the artist thinks a little promotion is doing as much as can be hoped for, or they're easily getting the desired results. And either way they slack on the rest.

Not all artists LIKE the auxiliary expression at the core of new-media promotion - ie: photos, graphics, blogging, designing on-line flyers, maintaining a presence through frivolous postings.

So they quickly start slacking. And this is the stuff only the artist can do. Even if someone else is helping promote, they can't bring a horse to water.

There is LESS of a sense that music could be a life-long career.

Therefore, less carrot-on-a-stick incentive.

It's easier now to have a marginally functional band partly because of the new tools, so there are more musicians in the stew who wouldn't have pursued a career before anyway.

They're happy just to play, and aren't going to get too entangled with the endless job of promotion.

See my recently updated website: http://www.martinbisi.com/