Wavves, originally the one-man project from 22-year old Nathan Williams, is one of the strongest examples of blog hype making and breaking an artist. Wavves began as Williams' very lo-fi, home recordings of catchy, poppy surfer punk music about partying, skateboarding and smoking marijuana. The songs are all very simple and have been criticized for being overly basic in terms of song-writing and talent. Williams mostly played small shows in an earlier band for friends in and around his hometown of San Diego but in 2008, following the suggestion of a friend, he sent some of his recordings out to a handful of record companies. Fat Possum, a record company based in New York City, loved Wavves and signed Williams to their label, soon after releasing his first album, a self-titled release. Pitchfork got word of the band and started to give them honorable mention, which was picked up by numerous blogs throughout the Web. From here, the hype spread quickly and Wavves was showing up on almost every music blog.
Pitchfork's huge influence on the success or failings of a band laid the groundwork for Wavves to reach success never even considered by Williams. In fact, he hadn't even intended to perform as Wavves before he became such a huge sensation. Then the pressure was on and Wavves began touring frequently, being blogged about in concert report fashion with photos and commentary for many of the shows.
A love/hate divide among music fans emerged as a result of some 22-year old becoming the next big thing in only a matter of months. There have a handful of other bands brought into the spotlight solely due to the Internet and blogging phenomenons, such as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, Tapes N' Tapes, Cold War Kids and many more. Whether or not they deserve the hype is up to the bloggers, not the readers, despite how unoriginal or untalented they may be. Many musicians work very hard at getting signed to a record label and becoming a professional musician but are rejected from the blogosphere simply because one blogger writes poorly about them and other blogs lose interest in carrying the story. Who is to say that these bands mentioned deserve the fame and other hard-working musicians do not? Is it all a matter of luck?
After another well-received, successful album, Wavves continued touring to a more extensive, large scale fashion. With a drummer in tow, Williams started to play big music festivals of thousands of people. After an onstage breakdown brought on by drug and alcohol abuse at the Primavera Sound festival in May of 2009, the blogs bit back at Wavves. Bloggers began calling him the perfect example of an immature brat who can't handle the pressures of a touring musician and used this event to harshly criticize not only his music but his personal character as well. The story became the most blogged about event of the year. Forced to cancel the remainder of the tour to take time off, people began to wonder if Wavves was finished.
On the gossipy aspects of blogging, Williams has said: "Oh, yeah, definitely. The indie TMZ, that's what it is. That's what these websites feed off, now, because people are so interested in it, the story behind the music. Whether or not it's true doesn't even fucking matter anymore. It's something to talk about, to start these comment wars. It's just a story and you can just get it out right away. And other people can read it and say what they think about it right away, and, generally speaking, 100% of these things are totally off. To get involved in it, and care about it, I feel like it'd just be a waste of my time."
Williams recovered but not without consequences: Wavves will always be infamous for the breakdown and tends to be altogether ignored by some listeners and blogs due to his antics and his general sound. The fact of the matter is though, Wavves continues to sell albums, get attention from major music journalism sources (even The New York Times has covered his concerts) and blogs, and play very well-attended shows.
Check out his music @: http://www.myspace.com/wavves/
Check out his blog @: http://ghostramp.blogspot.com/
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