Artists who are complete unknowns, with no connections or funding, need a body of work to get off the ground. With music, people are not looking to acknowledge songs per se; they’re looking to identify with the identity of the artist - as that identity exists within the music itself. Average listeners and music nerds alike. The “character” that the vocals, lyrics and subject matter, production style and musical compositions coalesce into over a course of songs, or tangibly, a body of work.

This is why it is necessary, mandatory even, for an artist on complete ground zero in regards to having a fanbase to have a body of work. Singles need institutional validation for people to be willing to pay attention; either from memes, radio pushing, or even going from the ground up via a preexisting social media base of the artist. Because a single alone can’t inherently inform this identity. Only a body of work can do so, by virtue of having enough material to pick from to make people go “okay, I can get a sense of an identity here”.

And why is the identity the most imperative aspect here you ask? Music is a social experience. Then again, this is only my opinion, a malleable viewpoint that is open to change. Thoughts from the one and the only

- BRAVE

I agree

There is a reason people don’t click on rappers with less than 100 views

having a strong personality helps

doja cat, lil nas x are huge for many reasons

what is the discussion meant to be

where does thank you by led zeppelin rank among the most beautiful songs of all time?

Yep, and this comes back to my singles argument. Singles are already against what people are looking to identify with fundamentally, so there better be a justifiable reason for people to check your singles out. Such a limitation doesn’t exist if a complete unknown is presenting a body of work, because it checks off what people are looking for off the bat - the capacity for a fully formed identity

i think to become like generationally acclaimed u need that moment but lots of examples of people become pretty well known off one song for the most part

tecca, nas x

even xxx to some extent when he was first out people knew look at me only and were down cause his album cover

Artists who are complete unknowns need albums to get off the ground

ill e-mail my stepdad & find out

Title change for more clarity

You can go even further n say they don’t need albums

Just cool pictures of them up on the internet

Adele is a great example of this after SNL it was to the moon from there

dont think thats true

i think you make some great points about the parasocial sorta nature fans of rap music have with artists & persona building etc. but i dont think a project much less an album is really neccesary for that

i mean look at ice spice, imo she had a fully formed persona before she dropped an ep. coulda easily just kept dropping singles & would keep ascending

What do you mean by gaining traction. Like what level of popularity is considered that

That’s a great point, but even for that to matter the artist needs some built in sizable group of individuals who fw them on whatever platforms anyway. A body of work is the only thing that can get that attention for an artist from absolute nothingness

you can build all that identity through MVs/social presence

if anything dropping an album kinda takes the wind out of some artists trajectory imo. theres a value to being mysterious & leaving people wanting

1) i mean plenty of people seem to be getting known off of just one song.

2) that doesnt mean they stick around though. with that in mind, is the current information/communication scheme of the game currently thus making it impossible for the game to produce artists with the ability to stick around?

carti is the like paradigmatic example of someone who blew up without a project

indeed the project coming last after he blueballed us for so long (in retrospect it doesn't look that long but the 2 years and change felt like a lifetime at the time lol)

Gaining any traction. Hell even a few thousand plays and views. But the level of traction isn’t the part that matters, hence why I didn’t harp on it. It’s the level of being completely unknown with no access to any “advantages” and gaining traction that I’m talking about

Ahhh ok I see what ur saying

I know this. I’m talking about artists who don’t have building a sizeable social presence as an option. If they were being considered this thread wouldn’t exist. This is about artists with literally nothing, complete and utter zero

Social presence and music videos, while having the capacity to build that identity, are moot if you don’t have something of a sizeable group of people who already fw you there

true, my mind went to artists like ice spice & pink pantheress. i kinda felt like both of their projects whilst being pretty good cus the songs are great, lacked any kind of coherent vision & their careers would be in a more interesting spot if they only dropped singles

i mean look at andre/lauryn . the second either of them dropped a single or a feature the world rushes to it, theres like a mythicality to their presence which is really rare in this overexposed climate

as an artist with multiple projects out & little to no following i can tell U this isn't the way to build 👍

i think the thread would do better with some examples to put it into perspective, if you have some. cause right now i'm not really understanding the type of entry level artist you're referring to.