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In Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point he describes mavens as the kind of people that are first to try new things (also sometimes called early adopters). If you’re an up and coming band, mavens will be the most willing to check out your music even if they haveno idea who you are. If you win them over they can be influential in spreading the word about your music. So where can you find music mavens online? Here are my best guesses:
Niche Music Blogs – Although Pitchfork is the first music maven blog that comes to mind, I think true mavens will be reading (or in many cases writing) super niche blogs dedicated to a specific genre or scene. A good example is Natalie, a blog that covers j-pop news from Tokyo.
P2P Communities – A number of music oriented file-sharing communities have been popping up and in many cases shut down (like the late, great OiNK.cd). While you might not sell many albums to these mavens, the users of P2P music sites are undoubtedly passionate about finding new music and sharing it with others. In fact according to this article the most downloaded album on the underground p2p music site What.cd is a compilation of songs from bands that posted their own albums to the site.
Music Discovery Services – Services like Pandora, Last.FM, iLike, and now iTunes Genius all go about recommending new music you might like based on what you already listen to. I’m not sure how many true mavens like the idea of an algorithm finding new music for them, but regardless having your music is on file with these recommendation services can only be a good thing.
MySpace – I’m not sure how many music mavens keep an active profile on MySpace, but regardless, MySpace is often the first place anyone will go to hear a new band.
I’m sure I’m missing quite a few places mavens go to discover new music. If you’ve got any to add, post them in the comments.
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