As alternative and indie music is on the rise, so is a feeling of anti-capitalism and distrust of large record labels. After cases where the major scale music industry mistreated artists like Taylor Swift, Frank Ocean and Johnny Cash, upcoming artists are hesitant to sign potentially predatory contracts.
Additionally, popular social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become perfect places for independent music artists, duos and bands to promote themselves at little to no cost. However, this also means that artists must become their own management and be wholly responsible for their own success.
This provides a rich opportunity for college radio stations across the nation to become revived pillars of pop culture. As program director of the student run on-campus radio station, WSRU-FM, I receive at least one weekly radio airplay request from independent artists or indie music management companies.
A radio airplay is the frequency a song is broadcasted on radio stations. Now, it is measured digitally by companies that gather analytics from organizations like iHeart Radio and SiriusXM primarily and independent stations secondarily.
Self-supporting musicians will not likely be featured on major radio platforms without the backing of a prominent label. Instead, they focus their efforts on independent or college radio stations to break into the music industry at a larger scale than passively posting on music streaming platforms without exterior promotion.
That is exactly why student-run campus stations are a potential gold mine for new artists discovery. College students, primarily those who are part of their radio station, are the individuals who are most passionate about music, go to concerts, buy records and are forming the music taste they will have for the rest of their lives.
If artists have the opportunity to be put into the collection of songs that college stations lovingly curate, they will be played for enthusiastically impressionable young adults who could form an emotional attachment for these independent artists, duos and bands.
This has been proven true historically for artists and groups such as R.E.M., Sinéad O’Connor and The Cure. Rock icon Joan Jett of Joan Jett & The Blackhearts once said, “college radio, when we were struggling, was one of the elements that really kept us afloat—being able to play gigs and people had heard of us because they were playing us on college radio stations. College radio was a big deal for us.”
College radio has the capability to foster the next generation of top-performing musicians by giving them a welcoming and creative outlet to gain a loving following that will support their careers all the way to the top.
