I love the idea of American Idol for guitarists/drummers/etc. I really could find the best musicians in the world. That would be fun.

From a business perspective, if I wanted to make money doing that, I could imagine sponsors like guitar companies paying. Fender (maker of the famous Stratocaster guitar, for you non musicians) just filed IPO paperwork and had something like $700M in sales last year.

I'm all for finding the "best musicians in the world", but what really shits me about Idol and similar shows is that they find technically brilliant singers, but they can't write a song if their life depended on it. The same with many brilliant musicians I know - they have the technical chops, but have no basic idea how to structure a song other than chorus-verse or maybe AABA.

There's got to be a market for musicians who know how to write.

Look, watch that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_hHc7TZjyY

That beauty transformed into this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY-vXcmpZIw

Please, don't blame the musicians.

She wanted to be a pop star and she became one of the greatest of all time—decades after the height of the pop star era when labels actually had the capability to manufacture them.

Frank Zappa made a career of playing rock music instead of jazz or classical which many people consider a greater art form. It never was really "pop" music but still there are many that criticize him for it.

I'd be very careful to avoid derision on the basis of popularity. That fact that you have distaste for Lady Gaga's genre doesn't mean she's not a valid artist. There's a difference between relying on autotune because you're a talentless hack and an artistic decision.

I'm well aware of Lady Gaga's songwriting ability and talent as a piano player. However, the Gaga persona seems to be her of her own creation, and I'm quite sure that at least for her first album, she wrote most of her own material.

I'm not blaming anyone - the music industry is a strange beast. But the true rarities are people like Gaga (as much as her I dislike her music), who can write and perform their own material well.

or a market for bringing them together

This idea is awesome and will make Fandalism something different than just another marketplace. It's also a nice time to show that not only do we not need the RIAA for distribution, we don't need them for promotion. Your site's design is also beautiful enough to do it.

Sellaband.com has been doing that since 2006.

For the record, most artists, including winners (I personally know one of them), say it's a double-edged sword: it gives you exposure, money and a foot in the biz, but in the end it's all about marketing and getting viral rather than concentrating on making music.

Wouldn't http://www.pledgemusic.com be the Kickstarter for musicians? I didn't think Kickstarter involved themselves much in projects beyond the screening process.

I know of a service which kind of does this (w/o the social network part tho):

www.wearelistening.org

=˜=ourstage

Really good idea; and then just focus on smart targeting, e.g. show Spanish metal bands -raising money for their new album- to Spanish people who follow metal bands.