As you may have heard, Nemo the Blizzard whipped his dick out and splorked 34 ice-cold inches all over the state of Connecticut, where I currently reside. Because I’m from the Lone Star state, I’ve been holing up and staying cozy the best way I know how: beside a radiator while nursing a bourbon IV drip. It’s given me a lot of time to think.
Oddly enough, Kitty (i.e., ♡kitty♡) has consumed my thoughts. Not because her latest effort, D.A.I.S.Y. rage, just dropped (although that shit is dank), but because, as an artist, Kitty is a bellwether of where the industry as a whole is heading. She and the rest of her cultural cohorts—A$AP Rocky and even One Direction, among others—have, in the process of creating music, accidentally reconfigured the idea of musical fame purely by way of Internet hype.
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Think back to a half-decade ago, when MySpace was still backlit by the incandescent klieg lights of fame. We were all younger and a little less wise, but we were invigorated by the idea that the Internet could be something more than a Wild West-esque playground. MySpace Music birthed its fair share of stars, and, along with Pitchfork, solidified the notion that online buzz actually meant something in a real, analog, dollars-and-cents sense. The Internet was the spot for anyone who thought they could hang.
Today, it’s pretty easy to see that MySpace isn’t the kingmaker it once was. In the wake of its collapse—the terminal result of an internal rot—a number of alternative sites have vied to fill the void. Though MySpace was gone, they paved the way for a more dispersed vision of online music distribution. Between the innumerable ‘zines, blogs, and hipster auteur bullshit, as well as the new options for direct distribution (Soundcloud, Bandcamp, etc.), musicians have more opportunities than ever to get their music to new listeners.
At the same time, microblogging sites—namely, Twitter—have allowed artists to interact directly with their fans.
And then there’s Tumblr.
Tumblr fuses microblogging with distribution; for a musician entering her artistic puberty, it’s a wonderful way to build a loyal fan base. I won’t pretend to understand what A&R thugs are looking for in emerging talent, but I’d wager my entire kingdom (it currently amounts to nearly 1 sq. ft in a snowbank) that a loyal—and large—fanbase is an appealing characteristic. Kitty and her ilk are the first of the “Tumblr-core/wave/ist” musicians, and, through the peculiar advantages of Internet fame, have gotten a ton of influential people to take them seriously. Each artist has followed a slightly different branding strategy, but they’ve all managed to be incredibly successful by following a variation of this new form.
Kitty: young, white, female rapper baring both her insecurities and a sick flow; currently cavorting with the likes of Andrew WK.
A$AP Rocky: born and raised in Harlem, with a developed penchant for extravagance; generally swagged the fuck out.
Kitty’s been the center of some major media attention, and her song “Okay Cupid” was listed at #17 on Rolling Stone’s Top 50 Songs of 2012. A$AP is touring with Danny Brown and Schoolboy Q, and recently released a banger featuring Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and 2 Chainz (the artist formerly known as Tity Boi).
Even those almost-lovable mopheads in 1D are part of this cultural zeitgeist. Quoth their Wikipedia page: “Propelled to international success by the power of social media, their two albums Up All Night (2011) and Take Me Home (2012) broke several records, topped the charts of most major markets, and generated hit singles…”
Social media is dead; long live social media. Tumblr is simply the latest way for we listeners to interact with music. The age of the Internet has finally cracked the musician-audience barrier, and egalitarian access to our favorite artists is a thing now.
That said: it’s not enough to just put your half-baked album on Tumblr and wait for a flood of reblogs and “WHAT IS AIR?!” comments—you’ve got to have at least some talent.
Or at least give good tweet.
Bijan gives good tweet. Don’t believe us? – @BijanStephen
