Years ago I was a member of my college radio station, where we frequently got the newest albums and artists to play. My cohost and I always had a great time, being idiots on the air and playing awesome new music.
Somewhere along the line, I noticed something peculiar: When I would go back and listen to a “new” track that I hadn’t heard in a few weeks, it would feel “old.”
I hated that. Here’s an artist I liked, that hasn’t even made it yet, and they’ve already been replaced in my rotation for newer music. And I talked to others at the time that felt the same. Sad.
After graduating, I began falling behind on my new music knowledge, so I created a simple music blog: The Heavy Edition.
Well, it was less of a blog and more of a weekly collection. I didn’t write any posts, just hosted links to new tracks and music videos I enjoyed that week. I would follow other blogs and sources, and when I found something to share, I’d throw it in a collection to publish the following week.
I wanted to keep a running collection I could always go back and refer to, so I wouldn’t forget about these bands.
Eventually, The Heavy Edition started gaining some followers, which was actually pretty cool. The problem was, after a few months, I started having trouble keeping up. I would hear so many (good) new bands and videos that by the time the next week rolled around to publish a post, everyone had already heard them last week!
Damnit, the same thing was happening…
So I switched to a daily collection. As soon as I heard something I liked I posted it. And the site became kinda successful—I think I had around 400 followers at some point. I kept it up until the end of 2010, when I started having less free time and just stopped posting. It had a good run.
Looking Back
In the years since, I’ve found myself returning to The Heavy Edition often. A song I hadn’t heard in awhile would jump into my head and I wanted to go find it, or I would hear someone that sounded familiar and wanted to see if I posted them years earlier.
When I visit the site now I think “Wow this song/band/video was awesome, I forgot about this.” I noticed that some bands are still around today, and many are not.
So it goes.
But it got me thinking: This was only a couple years, nearly 500 posts, and so many of these bands I just never hear about again. And I started thinking about all the bands I didn’t know, from years before I started The Heavy Edition and years after I stopped, that were probably damn good and you’d never hear anymore.
How many fucking awesome bands in the 70s and 80s are just lost forever? Damn…
It’s easier now than ever before for anyone to make music, and distributing and getting your name out there with social networks and apps like Rdio and Spotify makes it even viable, but breaking that last wall is still a challenge. That wall of making it into someone’s heavy rotation, of reaching a fan to the point that they pay money to see you in concert or buy your merch. That wall of making people remember you after they heard you only once or twice.
It’s a bit ironic, but as I look back I realize my first post is a video for a band I haven’t heard since I posted them (The Boxing Lesson – Dark Side of the Moog) and my second post, also a video, is for a band I went to see in concert only a few months ago (Red Fang – Prehistoric Dog).
Both were/are great.