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Originally Posted by Dotoar
Those independent labels & magazines were surely pretty local phenomena. I was all but cut off the 'underground' musical world as a young rascal before the internet started to take off.
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But they weren't local though, that's the point.
They were highly organised with a proper distribution centre (Rough Trade) where anybody from a independent label could come along and get their bands distributed nationally and because of the success of this distribution lots of this stuff got mainstream airplay & media coverage.
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And as for the money issue: The accessibility of the net today has more or less eliminated the money factor altogether when it comes to spreading your own music, or other's music that you've stumbled upon and wish to gain attention for. And once again, the fact that the mainstream channels - like always - have been more or less exclusively occupied by the major companies doesn't take away the vast independent scene that is alive and well and living not least online.
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There might be an independent scene but it's much more fractured, disorganised & small time, with everybody trying to get stuff heard good or bad. You can only do so much on the internet with no money. You can't promote or tour and that's what you really need to do to get a proper fanbase. Not just have someone download your album, listen to it once or twice and then forget about it because they have another 100 albums to listen to.
Like I said before, it makes everything more disposable & rarely gives people time to develop or build.
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I can't speak for everyone else but if I was to sit down and actually count the bands/artists that I discovered thanks to my online activities, it would exceed the amount of "offline discoveries" tenfoldly, if not more. Think about all the recommendations that actually are posted only on this forum.
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Yes but are they unsigned bands or bands who are signed & have records out?
If the latter is the case the only way it's easier is that you don't have to pay for it if you don't want to. You could probably find most of your online discoveries in a large record store just as easily.