Newest Musical Discovery: Kathryn Williams

I recently read a review of Kathryn Williams’s new album, Relations. While she’s apparently ‘the first lady of British folk’, I’d never heard of her. So, I visited her Web site, checked her out and was pleased with the results. She’s kind of Natalie Imbruglia meets Beth Orton for Sunday brunch. I considered buying her CD, but it’s only available as an import, so it’s going for $30 Canadian. I don’t like the fuzzy sound clips on her site that much.

I know I’ve droned on about this before, but it’s always remarkable to me how unusable and uninformative most musicians’ Web sites are. It seems like every musician has some Flash-obsessed friend do their Web site. Furthermore, once it’s up, they seem to ignore it. This is particularly true of new artists, which is all the more foolhardy. The newer the musician, the more important their Web site is to their marketing effort.

Smart artists (like Blue Rodeo and the Cowboy Junkies) understand that their site provides an easy way to communicate with their listeners, and provide regular updates and features to bring people back to the site.