Octopus Project playing the Blender Theater in NYC during CMJ 08 (Photo: Paul Bachmann)
The CMJ Music Marathon has officially begun online today with featured artists such as Fontaines D.C., Wolf Alice and The 1975 split across ten virtual stages.
Amazing Radio acquired the CMJ brand earlier this year, but with ongoing lockdown restrictions the very welcome and much overdue return of New York’s popular October festival is currently confined to streaming and past performance videos, but founder Paul Campbell has reiterated his commitment to CMJ’s comeback proper as soon as is possible.
“This is the re-awakening of a sleeping giant,” he says. “As musicians ourselves, we know how tough it is to get noticed, and even more so in these Covid times. So we have re-thought and re-invented CMJ for these times, and for all times.”
“The new CMJ is a recurring, cross-platform event, which starts this October but never stops. We can’t do it in New York right now, but we’ll do it everywhere else, forever. When live is back, we’ll be ready to rock – we are already working on plans to be back in live venues next year – but nobody has to wait for that.
“The idea is to give all musicians an opportunity to get noticed, and to create a path to greater recognition across our entire estate of online, radio and TV properties. It’s an integrated, simple, multi-platform route to success for the world’s best independent artists.”
