The death of the Battle of the Bands

Social media spamming competitions have largely replaced this music industry staple over the last decade. The BOTB was typically used as a means of allowing up and comers a stage which offered increased exposure and opportunities to climb the industry ladder. However, in the current era where bands largely are forced to assemble and promote their own shows while being paid next to nothing by venues, it has been phased out in favor of online attention whoring and ad spamming.

This has been a troubling development for bands in general. Anyone with a small investment and a little savvy can mix recycled beats on garage band and throw in some autotund vocals to make a sample track. They can then use pay spam fand a large friend circle voting to win these kinds of competitions. Very little talent required, and even less musicality.

Bands can't do this because it is difficult to record drums well. It requires a lot of expertise, thousands of dollars of equipment, and hours of soundchecks before the first track can be laid down.

Bands have the distinct advantage of being able to get on a stage and play their music unaided by a laptop or autotune. This gives them an advantage in an actual battle of the bands setup.

However, such competitions are expensive to put on and attract patrons to, so social media bullshite competitions have largely replaced them. As usual, the easy, tacky, and talentless rise to the top.