I have been harping for what seems like years about the fact that you do not need to sink piles of cash into studio recordings before growing your audience.

Here's new proof. With only one "official" single on the market, the Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys have built a strong enough audience to sell out a 2,000 seat arena. The Guardian reports that scalpers were selling tickets outside for $160 each. By building a strong audience and using the internet to appeal directly to fans, they created this swell of support with no help from a label and only one "real" single.

(Yes, I'll also qualify this with my other routine rant -- audiences in the UK love to seek out new music more than audiences in the US. But there's no reason you can't enjoy this same kind of success if you get focused on your audience.)

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