Historically [i.e. in pre-Internet days] a new music act would start out by touring relentlessly, in the hope that they would attract the interest of a label or manager. This action may lead to signing a recording contract. Once an album/ CD was recorded, the new music act would tour relentlessly in an effort to promote the new album/ CD. All things equal, the promotion of the CD/ album may lead to the new music act gaining some radio airplay, which would lead to some chart action/ album/ CD sales.

The new music act would follow exactly the same path in order to gain an audience in other overseas territories.

If successful on both of these fronts, the new music act's label could use their muscle to place one of the new music act's songs onto the soundtrack of a Hollywood film. This action would garner an even larger audience for the new music act.

This is called "paying one's dues", and I have a tremendous amount of respect for all of the artists who have followed this path in order to achieve the level of success that they desire.

Question: How does a new music act make a breakthrough today?

Using my homeland of Australia as a basis for my response, the live music venue scene has been steadily declining since the mid-1980's. This can be explained by local anti-smoking laws/ the introduction of poker machines to venues previously preserved for the performance of live music [especially new music acts]. Sure, there will always be a live music scene, however at present the focus is on "nostalgia" acts [i.e. guaranteed profit spinners for the promoter of music artists].

Radio stations in Australia [and worldwide] have been corporatised to the extent that it is very difficult for new music to find its way onto widestream audio waves. There will always be avenues for new music acts to "make it onto radio", however this will be limited to community radio stations with a very narrow listening audience.

Massive revenue was historically generated from album/ CD sales, however the present trend of single mp3 file sales has seen recorded music gross revenue savaged.

When analysed in that sense, why would a new music act attempt to "pay their dues" today?

There will always be exceptions to every rule. The most successful pop star in the world at present is Lady Gaga. How has she achieved massive commercial appeal, against these odds? Does she have a specific "X Factor", or has she been incredibly lucky?

What makes bands such as The Fray or Snow Patrol considerably more popular than the thousands of other bands around the world producing a similar type of music? Is their success purely based upon song placement in popular TV shows?

One thing is for sure, music will never die, nor will the following generation's desire to make their music reach a largest audience possible.

Who knows, maybe the entire process of success in music will come full circle?

Scott Williams
SW Songs and Publishing

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