The Online Revolution

Two of the members began their friendship whilst at college and after asking for instruments as Christmas presents they taught themselves to play. They recruited two other members and kept practicing to their favourite songs and uploaded their music on to a social networking site called "Myspace". Sites like Myspace allow artists to directly promote their music to their target audience, this is extremely useful to unsigned bands such as these. Fans who like their type of genre can search for the band rather than the band having to reach out to its audience. Arctic Monkeys are known for launching their career on the basis of this site. They essentially cut out the record label being the middle man and were able to reach a mass audience through the use of the internet, rather than having to physically go out and hand out promo CD's and set up live performances, they could promote themselves online for free and fans could listen to tracks as many times as they liked. The traditional method would of cost the band a substantial amount of money which is something an upcoming band does not have and without the help of a record label it was unheard of for them to be able to reach such a wide audience on their own.

With the rise of web 2.0, users can be more interactive with their favourite artists than they could ever before. The internet allows almost unlimited space for promotional activities, and connects the artists to the whole world, fans can join a mailing list, register as an official fan, buy merchandise and get personal with artists through their websites. Becoming increasingly more common is the ability for the audience to be able to buy and download tracks directly off the website, without having to leave the comfort of their own home. This has meant more traditional methods of going out and handing out music is becoming less and less common, there is becoming less need for a record label. This is becoming a problem for the music industry as it could lead to a collapse for the bigger companies.