Fifteen Minutes of Fame: An Independent Artist Music Review Blog

Originally Published March 31st, 2025 I recognize that I often sound like a broken record. Fifteen Minutes of Fame has been founded on the principles of having integrity with their objectivity and yet it would seem like I hardly ever criticize. My reviews are overwhelmingly “positive” or “optimistic” with regards to the artists I write about. Every recap is “this is one of my favorite months,” so on and so forth. This would be a problem if it wasn’t true. I am coming across more and more artists who exhibit so much potential every single month. I am receiving feedback from so many readers and individuals willing to participate in the FMOF culture that it’s breathtaking. The mantra is slowly starting to catch on. We are building the community we dreamed of.  Now, just because I report it in an article or review doesn’t mean it is going to happen. There is quite a bit of research that goes into most of my articles, but these are my opinions. They may be derived from fact but it may b...

Originally Published on March 28th, 2025 The Legacy of Folk Music About a week ago, I got a message from somebody asking if Fifteen Minutes of Fame had a classic rock playlist. I explained how our playlists were general. The gentleman then asked if one of his songs could be considered. That he was an artist from Paris, France. He explained that he’s “not seeing fifteen minutes of fame,” but wanted his music to be considered anyway.  I started listening. Something immediately stuck out to me. This wasn’t classic rock music. Maybe it could be associated with it in some ways, but I wasn’t hearing hard rock so much as I was hearing folk music. It was an instrumental song, but it was folk. I went to the next song; folk, roots, and maybe a dash of bluegrass. I wrote back. “I have a very ignorant question, I apologize. Is folk music prominent in France?” He kindly responded that he didn’t see much of a folk scene there.  I’ve always considered folk music and roots music to be a less ...

Originally Published March 26th, 2025 About the Artist It’s funny how some things stick with us; resonate with us. I’ve had a lot of influential people in my life with regards to music. One of them is one of my college professors, Lynn Peterson. Mr. Peterson is the kind of guy that you might look right past if you saw him in a crowd. He’s soft spoken, not very tall, and maybe his most remarkable feature might have been his glasses, which were about as thick as the bottom of a glass soda bottle. Yet, he is one of the most memorable people in my life. One thing I’ll remember him saying is, “Nobody will be as influential in music as  The Beatles  were (this was said back in 2002). He then said the thing that prompted the thought exercise. “One person came close:  Trent Reznor  of  Nine Inch Nails .”  Not that significant of a comment, really, if you look at it on the surface. But if you analyze what he said, damn. He’s right. Rock music changed composition of ...

Originally Published on March 17th, 2025 About the Band Twenty years ago, the indie scene was much different than it is today. The main difference, the internet. The potential of the internet had not been realized yet. Musically, the most impactful thing to be introduced was something that nearly killed the record industry:  Napster .  The internet was also useful for researching artists, which is something I’ve always loved to do. When I had a band I liked, I was fixated on learning about them. It was in researching my favorite band in 2002, that I made the discovery of a rock band that I would never forget. After reading about  Unbelievable Truth , I went to Best Buy, Media Play, and Circuit City to find a CD where I could hear this band. No luck. So, I took to Nashville and walked into Tower Records. It was there I would find the album  sorrythankyou .  Here is the tragedy of discovering Unbelievable Truth in 2002. They had broken up in 2000. Aside from relea...

Originally Published on March 19th, 2025 About the Artist In 2024, there was the world. But in 2025, the world is still here but now it has Fjueme in it.  The hip hop industry has changed a lot since I first started listening to rap in the early 90’s. The genre was dynamic, but only vaguely. As we progressed into the late 90’s and early 2000’s, rap began to diversify more and more, as artists experimented with club/dance music, organic music, and even rock and metal. Then in the 2010’s the physicality of it began to change as rappers began pushing the envelope with tempos and bars that were becoming almost indecipherable they were performed so quickly. Today, hip hop is an empire of diversity, with a broad representation of incredibly talented musicians who have pioneered the genre to unimaginable places.  One thing is for certain though: it doesn’t work without intensity. “This dude just gave me goosebumps,”  Fjueme  opens his Spotify bio by acknowledging this to be...

Originally Published March 14th, 2025 About the Artist When I worked on the summer staff for Appalachia Service Project, I enjoyed my office more than anything. My office didn’t have a very fancy desk, a name plaque, or a computer. But it did have a view. I was out in the natural world every day. Sunrises and sunsets would paint every sky. The Appalachian Mountains were monuments that stood older than time.  My staff members and I didn’t have televisions. We didn’t have internet service (the internet was hardly a thing back then). We hiked. We scoped out local swimming holes hidden in the mountains. We had a deep connection with nature. Those memories have been everlasting as I can close my eyes and instantly be transported back there. I can smell the crisp morning air and feel its condensation. I feel the warmth in my heart and the smile on my face, in spite of the string of sleepless nights. Many songs I’ve written have been inspired by these moments at that time. This is a feeli...

Originally Published on March 12th, 2025 I Can’t Believe We Are Here I’ve been thinking a lot about what I would want to say in this article. Looking back a year ago, it was about a month before I went on to Threads and first uttered the words “Fifteen Minutes of Fame.” I was hyping a new single I had heard by  Tones and I  and I had posted a picture of an adorable  baby goat  I had seen while taking my dogs to the vet. I had very few followers and no idea how to connect to other independent artists.  My wife and I have been listening to the audio book of  Al Pacino's  autobiography, called  Sonny Boy . There was a particular part that stuck out to me. It was in the very early parts of his adulthood, before he had a career, when he was still aspiring to be a stage actor. He was living in a small apartment in New York with  Martin Sheen  and they both worked in this theater as janitors, actors, handymen, etc. they described doing “off, of...

Originally Published March 10th About the Artist It’s 6:45 in the morning, on a Monday. This weekend, I spent a little bit of time in the studio tracking a song, I bought lumber to build some boxes for our vegetable garden, I took our girl  Kali  to the vet (she has a sprained ACL), and I ran some other routine errands. The weekend was kinda great in that way that makes Monday a little more difficult to find my motivation.  Body aching from the bit of labor I did, I groggily press play. I super charged guitar riff starts playing in my left ear, then it layers in my right. The drums come in, unapologeticallyn, accompanied by the bass. Then the line: “Rain on my parade. Skies are turning grey. Luck an’t my friend. No, not today.” Not only am I awake, I’m looking for a wall to run through by now.  It’s no secret. It’s no surprise. Ever since  Joan Jett & The Blackhearts  screamed into a microphone the phrase “ I Love Rock 'N' Roll ” in 1981- even before th...

Originally Published on March 5th, 2025 About the Artist Music has a way of articulating feelings like no other force on Earth. It has the power to be as ubiquitous as the air we breathe, or the atoms that shape our universe. It’s an intangible force that can make us feel like we’ve run into a brick wall, or that we can fly. Life can sometimes be mundane, uncertain, or depressing. Even in its most depressive state, music is glorious.  Somewhere, in Minneapolis, Minnesota,  Conzemius  is giving the impression that she has a profound sense of this. She articulates it as she is “navigating life’s complexities with a soft strength.” ( conzemiusmusic.com )  What a way to describe feeling like being two places at once; at least enotionally. Conzemius says that “her songwriting reflects a true reverence for life’s contrasts, having experienced the depths of numbness and the heights of exhilaration.” ( conzemiusmusic.com )  Her music certainly conveys that.  Conzem...