Investigating the concept of a rising artist — music journalists’ perspective
The concept of a rising artist is an important element of music reporting and classifying acts as they emerge on the music scene of a city, town, country or globally. Some conflate rising artists with rising stars, others consider any emerging musician to be rising. Most tend to gravitate to something in between.
Since our Show4me blog is read by musicians and music professionals, we’ve decided to create a post covering the concept of a rising artist — to help understand where the playing field starts and ends.
We’ve found the responses we got from the music journalists who wrote for Billboard, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Revolt, American Songwriter, Premier Guitar, Music Connection, The New York Times, and other industry media so enlightening that we even went ahead and created an infographic to illustrate our piece:
The graphic summarizes the answers we got from the 11 music journalists, writers, and reporters into six pillars that constitute the concept of a rising artist:
- fresh on the scene
- with good brand
- demonstrates potential for longevity
- has made a cultural impact
- has made a dent in the financial department
- gets singled out by experts
The journalists we’ve talked to for this piece: Senior Writer at Rolling Stone Kory Grow, kathy iandoli — author of God Save The Queens: The Essential History of Women In Hip-Hop and contributor to Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, Billboard correspondent Karen Bliss, longtime contributor to American Songwriter Rick Moore, Premier Guitar contributor Paul Kobylensky, Billboard Editor Steve Knopper, Brooklyn-based freelance writer Matt Wallock (bylines: American Songwriter, AdHoc, Hopscotch), music journalist Macie Bennett (bylines: American Songwriter, Music Connection), Billboard’s Senior Director of Live Music Dave Brooks, music journalist kc orcutt (bylines: Revolt, Hypebeast, The Source, BET), freelance writer/reporter Nicole Pajer (bylines: The New York Times, Billboard, Rolling Stone).
You can read the full piece on our blog here, but we will tease a bit of insight from Nicole Pajer — she told us that today’s music market seems very DIY and getting your music out there is all about interacting on social media, finding creative ways to promote your releases, and get more ears to hear it.
