Unbeknownst to those outside of the industry, day-to-day life as a musician usually encompasses long periods of inactivity, immediately followed by periods of intense activity. This can mean you are sat down staring at your phone screen one minute, and rocking out in front of 10,000 strangers the next. In this blog, we check out a great list of music blogs to look at in your spare time.
Whether it’s waiting backstage or traveling in the back of the van, if you’re looking to stay productive, downtime is a great opportunity to check out some good music blogs for news, reviews, advice and expertise.
If you have a specific subject in mind that you’d like to read up on, it is important to remember that each blog on this list will have a different set of resources available.
This means it’s important to find the right site to provide answers for whatever you’re looking up.
Fortunately, the blogs in the list below represent sites that specialise in news, technology, performance, recording and a whole bunch of other subjects.
A quick hint – take a brief look at the blog’s “about” page to find out about the contributor’s experience and where their area of expertise might lie.
1. The Unsigned guide
The Unsigned Guide is a go-to for many musicians for advice on a whole host of subjects. TUG is, perhaps, most famous for its directory that offers you access to over 8,500 music industry contacts.
However, they also run an excellent blog offering advice for emerging artists and musicians.
Example blogs:
- What should I include in my band biog?
- Demo submission emails: the dos and don’ts
- What artist managers and entertainment agents want to see from your band
2. How to get gigs
The LMM sister-blog tries to narrow its focus and help musicians secure well-paid shows. If you’re looking to fill up your calendar with new gigs, then this blog will offer constructive advice on everything from promotion, to developing your musicality and stage show.
Example blogs:
3. Music Entrepreneur HQ
Music Entrepreneur is a brilliant grassroots blog that seeks to help facilitate musicians to further their career and navigate the dark corners of the music business, while keeping their artistic integrity intact.
Alongside the blog, they also offer books, videos and run a podcast.
Example blogs:
4. The Last Minute Musicians Blog
For the LMM blog, we work really hard to collate real-world, practical information for our readers that’s based on the experience of working professional musicians – our staff and our members.
If this is the first blog you have read by LMM, we’d encourage you to check out our blog homepage and look through the categories for something interesting.
Example blogs:
5. Ditto Music Blog
Ditto are a company that specialise in helping you independently release your music to your audience. As such, they have written some really helpful blogs, designed to support independent artists and help them flourish.
Their blogs are primary tailored to independent, unsigned artists looking to kickstart or further their career.
Example blogs:
6. The Musicians’ Union
While its primary job is to represent Musicians’ political interests, campaign and collectively bargain, the MU is also a natural source of information for working professionals.
The Musicians’ Union does its best to release comprehensive advice to both members and non-members alike, although some of its blogs will only be available to dues-paying members.
Example blogs:
7. Music Think Tank
Billing itself as “Where the music industry thinks out loud”, Music Think Tank takes a slightly different approach to many of the other blogs here. MTT calls for open submissions from its community.
As such, there is a huge number of resources on the site and they cover practically every subject that you could think of. However, it’s worth taking the time to doublecheck the bona fides of the author you are reading, or just do a little additional research to back-up any advice you get.
Example blogs:
8. Hype Bot
Keeping its pulse firmly on new technological and business developments within the music industry, Hype Bot has been providing the latest news, trends and technologies since 2004.
Hype Bot offers weekly round ups on the various categories it covers, making for a handy summary of that week’s developments and advice. It also frequently ties in with MTT to signpost to useful blogs.
Example blogs:
9. Digital Music News
Based in the US, DMN offers “Music News and In-depth Analysis” with resources ranging from a ‘daily snapshot’ email newsletter to articles and advice that is tailored for musicians.
Example blogs:
10. Event Industry News
Event Industry News offers all sorts of information to people working in the events industry.
While some of this might not apply to all musicians, if you’re working in a band that is targeting corporate events, this is a great place to learn more about how they are put together and work out how your act can market to them directly.
Example blogs:
Do you have any music blogs that you’ve found useful? Let us know in the comments below…
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