How to Support Your Favorite Singer or Band

You’ve discovered a great new recording artist or an under appreciated older one and you’re dying to spread the word. Here are a few tips on how to support (not stalk) your favorites...

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. It may seem obvious, but start out by buying their CD’s or LEGALLY downloading their music. Buy tickets to their concerts when they tour. That’s the most direct route to show them you care—show them the money.
2. Write a good review of their CD and/or live shows on Amazon, iTunes, and other well-trafficked music sites. MySpace and www.tagworld.com are just a couple of the websites that actively support and promote new, unsigned, established and just about any other kind of recording artist you can think of.
3. Email your reviews to friends and family and ask them to support the artist by purchasing the CD and visiting the websites as well.
4. Visit the artist’s official website, or if they don’t have one, visit their record company’s site. Get on their email lists. Often, there will be a link to something called “the street team.” This is a volunteer position in which the record company will send you promotional materials, like postcards and posters, and ask you to put them up all over town -- in retail outlets, stores, coffee shops, venues, and on the streets.
   
   I was on the Rosanne Cash street team (please buy the brilliant album "Black Cadillac," btw) and received an autographed CD for my trouble. They also run raffles for show tickets and other prizes as well. Not a bad deal.
5. Request the artist's song by email or phone to the appropriate radio station. If the band is not on their play list, ask that it be added. Old-fashioned, but the radio stations and their parent corporations do track requests.
6. Sit back and watch your artist take off. You can say you discovered them way back when...

Tips & Warnings

• Don’t ask to meet the artist or go backstage, don’t act weird, don’t bother the record company, don’t stalk them.