Social media helps promote small musical artists in a necessary way

By Amsey Liebenow

Art by Evie Bartlett

In a time of Spotify and Apple Music, our generation has been cursed with seemingly inevitable music ruts, too easily fallen into after listening to a playlist on repeat for a week too long. Discovering artists, especially the less popular, can sometimes be challenging. 

Evie Bartlett (9) says, “A big struggle for me is finding small artists to listen to in the first place. Sometimes my friends send me songs or Spotify recommends them [to me], but overall, they are really hard to find.” 

Others look to more surprising sources for new music. 

Anum Raza (10) says, “Really, I only ever find small artists through social media. It’s a really useful tool because most of the time they just show up on my ‘For You Page’ [the Tik Tok landing feed page].”

Social media, most specifically, TikTok, is a great way to find artists, as the algorithm tends to guide watchers deeper into their interests. 

Camille Smith (11) says, “I’ve done a lot of musical exploration recently and have gotten into Electronic Dance Music, which is a great genre for small artists. Panchiko, Disco Biscuits, and Fujiya and Miyagi are some of my favorites right now.”

Despite the love and fascination with small artists, sometimes it’s not just the act of finding them that hinders our support.

Evie Bartlett (9) says, “I love small artists, such as Peter McPoland, but it’s hard to support them [small artists] when they don’t have enough listeners to create music often or perform for live audiences. I often find myself returning back to the more popular, trending artists.”

Nathan McHenry, the St. Mary’s Middle and Upper school band director, says, “Small, up and coming artists are important for us to listen to because they have a different voice. We have to support small artists in different ways to prevent artists from retreating out of the music industry. Some great ways [to support small artists] are listening to their songs, purchasing merch and attending their live concerts, as Covid mitigations permit.”