Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt 26z
A good case study that proves you wrong is Mika. Popular in Europe, but his label didn't "bring him to the US" because one of his songs was about a gay man. He gets absolutely no radio play in the US and isn't on MTV at all either.
So one would think he would have a problem touring the US, right? Quite the opposite in fact. His US tour last month was sold out, and these were not tiny hole in the wall venues. They might not have been arena shows, but a guy that gets ZERO promotion in the US shouldn't have sold out the venues he played at. Yet he did.
The only explanation is that US fans found him though avenues that didn't involve his label.
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There are always exceptions to the rule, but Mika is far from having zero promotion in the US. First off he gets talked about all the time on Perez Hilton's website. While that may not be a big deal to some, the guy gets millions of readers every day. Plus he promoted himself via is myspace page and he is all over youtube. With modern technology and the internet if you become big in once place your fans can spread the word about you. It is like the old days when you found a band you liked and you would copy the tape for a friend only on a huge global scale. If Mika didn't have a lot of money behind him in Europe he most likely wouldn't have been nearly as popular as he is and that would making being a success here much harder.
If you take an average band, even if they have access to a top notch studio and can record a great sounding record, they will have a very hard time getting very big without a lot of help from big labels or from some kind of financial backer.