The next big things - but we can't tell you who they are

For an increasing number of new bands, online anonymity andsecrecy are the routes to success. Gillian Orr reports

It seems that the internet is to blame for everyone's problemsthese days. Not only does it have the publishing world, travelagents and the Post Office up in arms, the music industry would alsolike a few choice words with Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Reports of illegalfile-sharing, the decline in sales and the death of the record storeare all familiar stories. But now there is a growing issue aroundthe way in which the internet, with its myriad social-networkingsites and blogs, is fond of plucking the next big thing fromobscurity, making them the online toast for a few precious months,before dropping them and declaring them old news. And whiletraditional media are certainly guilty of this fickle behaviour too,it is online where bands tend to rise and fall at such a swift rate.

Now new artists are turning to ever more enterprising methods totry to combat our short attention spans. By maintaining some controlover how much is known about them and refusing to divulge everyfact, song and thought (initially, at least), acts are keeping uscurious and, as a result, increasing their shelf life.

"It's come about because a lot of people have been quitedesperate to prove themselves as A&Rs by being the first to discoverthe next big thing. That's fine, but it has been harmful to someartists who have been hyped very early on and have perhaps not beenready," says David Adcock, product manager at Columbia Records. "Theother thing is that artists become dated really quickly. If a bandhas received a lot of attention at the demo stage, then by the timethey've had a chance to record their album properly and tour enough,when the finished record finally arrives, the mindset of a lot ofpeople is 'Oh, you were last year's band. We've got new ones now'."

Things are changing and these days new bands are instructed to becareful with what they share, and to restrict the number of songsavailable online. Others are taking more drastic measures, hidingtheir identity and obfuscating the public to retain an air ofmystery.

Until recently WU LYF refused to participate in interviews andhad only released one press shot of a gang of nine people with whitemasks covering their faces. Nobody even knew if any of thosefeatured in the picture were in the band, let alone the names of itsmembers. They went as far as performing some of their live shows incomplete darkness. After uploading three tracks last year, they werequickly lauded online and deluged with offers from labels, butdecided to forge ahead on their own and self-release their work.Their hotly anticipated debut album, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain,comes out next week.

Just as some were beginning to dismiss their relentless obstacle-throwing as a marketing ploy (they are managed by Warren Bramley,founder of the creative agency four23) they came out and revealedthemselves to be four young guys from Manchester.

It wasn't just a tantalising tale of intrigue that the quartetwas trying to spin (though it no doubt contributed to interest inthem); there was a more practical reason behind their subterfuge:they didn't feel that they were ready. Last week their lead singer,Ellery Roberts, 20, told NME, "When we got that initial blob of hypeabout a year ago we could quite easily have monopolised it. But wehadn't finished the songs. So we went to ground."

It's a position many young bands find themselves in after beingthrust into the public consciousness on blogs. Cults, the New York-based duo who released their debut album last week to rave reviews,uploaded three tracks on to the internet last year just one weekafter finishing them. "We recorded these songs and we thought thatnobody was going to listen to them, so we put everything up on ourBandcamp [a website that enables bands to post and sell music directto their fans]. And then very quickly people started emailing us andasking who we were," Cults' Madeline Follin says. "And we didn'treally know how to respond to that question."

Although it wasn't initially a conscious decision, the bandembraced their anonymity and ran with it, refusing to release anyproper pictures, say who was in the band or respond to the growingpile of interview requests. While the more cynical would dismiss itas a marketing gimmick (and perhaps it was a well-executed one),Follin insists that the band just weren't ready to have thespotlight on them yet. "It gave us the freedom to figure out exactlywhere we wanted to go with the band," she says.

While one of their tracks, "Go Outside", was being championed byjust about every music website and blog online, Cults had never somuch as played a gig. The interest to see them live grew and theyended up performing some early shows under pseudonyms, including TheCults UK and the rather more obscure Lady MJ and the Highwater BongBoys, to prevent being prematurely judged.

Performing early shows under different monikers is a growingtrend these days. Summer Camp and YAAKS are just a couple of actswho chose to take the pressure off by revealing very little whenthey went public. Summer Camp only released old Polaroid pictures ofrandom people (which actually complemented their nostalgic, lo-fisound perfectly), while it took months for the industry to work outwho made up the dance-punk act YAAKS, who arrived on the scene withthe prerequisite blurry press shots.

This idea of being enigmatic is in contrast to how bands operateduntil quite recently. "Three years ago you'd put all your songsonline, but now it's going the other way and people are reallylimiting it," says Mairead Nash, founder of LuvLuvLuv, a recordlabel and management company which represents Florence and theMachine. "It's too much, too quickly now. Bands don't have time toform their identity or develop; it's all so public these days. Andthe web is oversaturated - a lot of what is written isn't even aboutthe music; there are pictures everywhere. Bands can't go to thebathroom these days without someone blogging about it. Does anyonecare that much about a new band? I don't think they do, so you haveto be selective with what's out there.

"Everyone's sick of the band before the album has even come out,"she adds. "You get written about after two singles, but then ittakes six to eight months to make the record and everyone is like'Oh that was so eight months ago'. People get really bored and don'tappreciate what it takes to make a record or how long it takes.That's the danger."

While WU LYF or Cults may be extreme cases, we can expect to seeplenty of new artists keeping a little in the shadows in the futureand not revealing everything too early on. Whether it's because theywant to keep people intrigued, save something of themselves forlater, shy away from the hype or perhaps just because they're notready for the attention, in the accelerated times we live in,sometimes a little bit of mystery is one of the most powerful assetsa band can have at their disposal.