The Indie Blog Curse

Twenty-three-year old Nathan Williams has had a stressful year. The singer and guitarist records under the name Wavves. And in the past eleven months or so, he’s seen the kind of rise and fall that provided the arc of the “behind the music” series for years: gritty-beginnings, rocketing rise, drug-induced crash and burn ending in rehab, Holiday Inn lounge circuit, or reality show.

At first, music blogs and established rock magazines alike embraced Wavves’ lo-fi, punk aesthetic, and hundreds of people showed up at his very first show. Nathan was on top of the world. But at Spain's Primavera music festival in May, things took a drastic tumble. He was disjointed, he couldn’t play worth a lick, and angry fans hurled bottles and shoes at him. The blogs documented his self-destructive episode, and reader responses turned rancid.

Washington Post pop music critic Chris Richards has seen the same backlash happen to bands like Vampire Weekend and Black Kids, and hip-hop performers like Charles Hamilton. Richards believes that as music blogs take up a bigger role in promoting and distributing the newest bands, more aspiring young stars will be thrust into the spotlight well before they’re ready. Chris Richards joins us from the studios at the Washington Post.

The Washington Post: Indie-Rock Success So Sudden, It Actually Hurts

(Photo by The Accent via Flickr/Creative Commons)