by nobody15678945

Created on: February 09, 2009   Last Updated: February 21, 2009

In terms of current marketing trends, yes absolutely. Artists should all be marketing geniuses, with their fingers on the pulse of every new promotion ploy that becomes available. They should interact and get into viral marketing and be prominent on fansites and Facebook with all its fan groups and pages and all the rest of it. With the advent of the internet there's free music available and million of artists wanting to be heard and of course, to sell their merchandise. These days, merchandise seems to be a more powerful word than art or music is.

There's another way to look at it. A rock star is an artist and should be able to focus on his or her art, live a flamboyant lifestyle or a hermit-like one or whatever and basically just be an untouchable artist. So perhaps they shouldn't need to interact with us, the mob, the humble fans. Do people want an accessible product or a heroic dream? Do stars need to communicate directly or are they already accomplishing that with their songs?

Some people seem to desire approachable rock stars, others see the word star as being something bright and far away and some people do not wish to be near their heroes, in case their hero turns out to be human and have feet of clay after all.

Fansites can be really cool things take a look at www.murmur.com for example which has been going strong for many years now. Those people are truly devoted and they do get some interaction from the R.E.M. corporation but usually it's paid for by fan club subscription fees. Rock stars are famous some of them are interested in you and me, but some of them are too big and too busy. The benefit of a fansite for rock star is that there are plenty of fans willing to put in the work for free. Other stars blogging Coldplay's Chris Martin is just one example of this. If you want a truly surreal personal look into a star's life, look up Courtney Love's myspace blog.

Interaction on fansites is a good way to maintain that fanatical loyalty that rock stardom causes. It's the online version of signing autographs, shaking hands and sleeping with groupies.

Perhaps the question is simply not relevant, after all, who says anyone "has" to do anything at all in terms of marketing and socializing? Perhaps rock stars should just be left to do whatever they want about fansites and fans can choose their objects of devotion according to what they need from them.

Isn't free will great?

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