Challenges Facing Emerging Performers
The music industry, and individual musicians, have in recent years faced increasing challenges, many of them relating to rights-management and internet piracy. In the UK one of the biggest challenges for many musicians is finding funding to produce music in the first place. The recently launched ‘Music Momentum Fund’ is at least one piece of good news on this front; the government backed initiative aims to help up to 75 bands over the next two years and is specifically aimed at supporting popular music and newly emerging acts in a broader range of genres. The head of the fund has, controversially claimed in a recent Radio Four interview that the UK’s major labels are unwilling to risk backing new talent and that the fund will attempt to address this issue.
Low Level Coverage
While the music industry hit back at these comments, arguing that they don’t truly reflect the situation and pointing to the fact that less-than-mainstream pop acts, including artists such as Emilie Sande and Jessie J, have all been nurtured and developed by major labels. Others have argued that the major companies are not alone in their focus on purely mainstream artists and that major channels also tend to feature only mainstream acts. While the BBC’s Radio Six continues to fight the corner of the less well known and emerging artists and it’s late night Radio Three ‘Late Junction’ can hardly be described as pandering to populist tastes, it seems true that there are few opportunities for the less than traditional artists and performers to find air time. The situation is similar on TV with the BBC’s Later with Jools Holland, offering a rare and opportunity, although still featuring reasonably established performers.
Strange Acts and Tomorrow’s Stars
The problem facing many talented bands that don’t readily fit into the big Labels requirements for well developed talent which offers a very quick return on their investment is an age old one. Yet the apparent short term approach of the bigger labels is a strategy that has, time and time again, failed to identify the next big thing in music. Bands such as the Prodigy, Oasis and Nirvana all signed with independent labels, being far too left-field and risky for mainstream Labels and yet all went on arguably to become mainstream. Today’s experimental and non-mainstream musicians are in fact, often tomorrow’s mainstream performers. Making the step from one to the other is frequently hampered by lack of funding. For many musicians struggling with these issues the ‘Music Moment Fund’ may well prove to be most useful.
Valuable (and Rare) Funding
The fund offers grants to performers and bands that range from £5,000 to £15,000, and the first deadline for applications is only weeks away at the end of June. The basic aim of the grants is to help bands and performers develop to the next stage in their career, while the Arts Council (the body behind the funding) hopes to be able to use the scheme to identify how to help performers in the future. The grants can be used to develop new material, fund tours, recording and studio costs, marketing and fund any other activity that can be shown to help musicians develop to the next stage of their careers. Arts funding in general, and more so in ages of austerity, is always a contentious issue and the fund is a rare opportunity which should be grabbed by anyone aiming to improve their musical career. Also, the fact that one of the aims of the support is to establish what are the best ways to support performers in future, playing a role in the grant scheme may give musicians the chance to form future policy and develop targeted grants for both themselves and other rising stars. Given the numerous challenges facing musicians in the UK (and globally) the funding can only be seen as a much needed boost to new and emerging acts.
Bob Emerald is a freelance writer who is all too aware of the challenges faced by artists, writers and musicians! He believes that whether it’s to fund a http://www.sohosonic.com/ or a B&B in Blackpool the new Music Momentum Fund may be just what many musicians are looking for.
