I recently heard, during a discussion about marketing, that when you are promoting a product or service, right around the moment you are borderline nauseated by the sheer volume of references you’ve thrown at your audience… that’s when they’ve noticed it for the very first time.
Most of what you say disappears into the ether. Only the bruisingly persistent are ever heard.
That principle applies for me when it comes to new music. I read a lot of magazines and websites that throw out casual mentions of artists who sound vaguely interesting, but it’s only when I run into the same name again and again that I really take interest.
I remember discovering Miranda Lambert that way. By about the fifth magazine article published around the release of her album Revolution, I started thinking I should give her a listen.
That says a lot about the power of the press, but it doesn’t bode well for those obscure artists who are lucky to earn even one mention in a national publication.
This week I’m going to feature songs by five such one-off artists. I came across these five names in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone, and it’s the first I’ve heard of any of them. Perhaps some or all of them will start popping up all over the place, but for once I won’t wait until that happens.
Damien Jurado is a Seattle-based singer-songwriter who’s been kicking around for nearly two decades. He released his 12th studio album, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son, this January.
NPR had this to say about Jurado: “It’s a testament to singer-songwriter Damien Jurado’s versatility that he’s made nearly a dozen albums of largely inward-looking folk and rock music, and yet has never made two records that sound the same. He’s released collections of sad solo acoustic music, hard-charging up-tempo rock, subtle psychedelic wanderings, and even painfully intimate messages he’d found left behind on thrift-store cassette tapes — and they all either sound like him or, in the case of the answering-machine tapes, perfectly reflect his sensibilities.”
High praise. This song is fine, if not quite enough to get me excited to hear more.
Shapeless was his frame and his colors were few
We went out for a time but his sentence is in
Climbing in to the eye where the numbers begin
[Chorus]
Go back down, don’t touch the ground
Go back down, don’t touch the ground
Go back down, don’t touch the ground
Go back down, don’t touch the ground
I was met on the road by a face that was mine
Echoed chambers and spoke with a [?]
You can never go home if you were never shown
Spots on the irises bleed where the numbers were born
[Chorus]
Meet Me In Montauk 
Very interesting thoughts about the power of marketing. Clearly these marketing principles apply for me as I have already forgotten this guy’s name in the tine it took me to scroll down to the comment box.😄
This song is pleasant enough, but nothing that makes me want to seek out more either.
How has Damien Jurado found funding to make 12 studio albums if more people aren’t listening?! That’s the part I find shocking. I wouldn’t think a studio would stick with an artist not selling records. I just finished reading the Kenna chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, so I’ve been reflecting on this whole marketing/music connection. Great timing.
As for this song, I don’t much like it. The electronic”y” sound, especially at the end, is not for me. But I guess it’s for someone who eagerly awaits lucky #13.