Bands Who Got Their Start on Myspace
Via Loudwire
Sometime before the dawn of Facebook and Spotify, but after the death of Napster and peer-to-peer sharing networks, digital music consumption and social media were dominated by a little thing called MySpace. There were “bulletins” instead of statuses, “Tom” was the original Mark Zuckerberg, there was a “Top 8” feature that allowed users to prioritize their friends list, and most selfies were taken and posted from somebody’s Sidekick.
More importantly, there was a wealth of underground music that was only a click away from discovery. In fact, users were able to add a music player to their page, which would automatically cue up when someone visited their profile. This offered bands a means of free and viral marketing as those in the “scene” would pass around and share their favorite bands like a joint at a frat party.
Attack Attack!
In 2007, a couple of high school friends hit the studio to record a few tracks. Without a label behind them, they did what all newcomers did back in the day and dropped the tracks on MySpace. They became an instant hit and caught the attention of manager Eric Rushing of The Artery Foundation. Rushing signed the band to Rise Records the following year where their demos were polished up and saw a proper release as the band’s first EP, If Guns Are Outlawed, Can We Use Swords? They shortly followed this release up with their first full-length, Someday Came Suddenly, which featured the appropriately titled track, “What Happens If I Can’t Check My Myspace When We Get There?”
Bring Me the Horizon
As I write this list, I realize that 2010 was surprisingly a very integral year when it came to MySpace music trends. Bring Me the Horizon are no exception, coming in as The Most Popular Band on Myspace that year. In fact, they held it down for a while as one of MySpace’s Top 100 List of Most Played Bands. Like BFMV, they also used the social media platform as a means for premiering music and also participated in MySpace’s secret show series.
