{"id":697614,"date":"2026-01-15T12:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/697614\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T12:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:22:10","slug":"the-music-press-is-essentially-dead-meet-the-manchester-platform-trying-to-revive-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/697614\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The music press is essentially dead\u2019 – meet the Manchester platform trying to revive it"},"content":{"rendered":"

From post-punk pioneers to the Brit-poppers, hip hop collectives and punk rockers, Manchester has long been celebrated for its music heritage.<\/p>\n

But in recent years, the landscape for emerging artists has become tougher than ever. The rise of streaming services, the restructuring of local commercial radio, and a troubled media landscape dominated by clickbait and declining print sales have all combined to shrink the platforms that once helped some of the city\u2019s best talent get noticed.<\/p>\n

For music writers and storytellers, local, paid journalism jobs are increasingly hard to come by, too.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the gap music media platform Soledad is still hoping to fill. Last April, Oli Wilson, founder of Beyond the Music and son of the late Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, journalist and poet James Young, plus social entrepreneur Charlie Stanley, launched the platform with a mission to pay writers, showcase new artists, and connect Manchester\u2019s diverse music scene.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: <\/strong>From MOBOs to Mercury Prize: meet the relentless Generator boss putting the North East on the music map<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Ten months on, Soledad\u2019s editor James Young says the platform has achieved some of its initial goals, paying new journalists to write gig reviews and interviews while acting as a \u201cstepping stone\u201d to help them build up their portfolios of bylines.<\/p>\n

For emerging artists, the platform is slowly becoming a \u201ctraining ground\u201d due to the scarcity of interview opportunities elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this weird situation at the minute in music journalism, because the music press is essentially dead,\u201d James Young tells Prolific North.<\/p>\n

\u201cTop artists get all of the press and radio play, but if you\u2019re an emerging artist, you\u2019ve got BBC Introducing, a couple of smaller community radio stations. Aside from that, there\u2019s no middle ground, which is what we\u2019re trying to fill, as well as bringing people together more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cManchester has an amazing music scene, but it feels very fragmented. Different genres are doing different things, and it\u2019s nice to be able to bring it all in one space.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the big bands coming out of Manchester are not being written about by the local press, which is insane,\u201d he explains. \u201cEven The Mill. I think they do a really good job of politics, but I think their cultural stuff is lacking, especially in music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople forget that journalism is a huge part of that ecosystem\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the rise of Westside Cowboy, Dove Ellis, or emerging rappers, there\u2019s \u201cso much that just hasn\u2019t been reported on\u201d in Manchester. So what\u2019s missing to support new artists and emerging music writers, and could the creative community do more?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a \u00a31 levy that\u2019s going to grassroots venues, which is great, but that\u2019s just the start when you think about how much money the big promoters are making that could be supporting smaller artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople forget that journalism is a huge part of that ecosystem as well. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s respected as much. You\u2019ve got your radio pluggers, marketers, the labels, but without journalists writing about what you do, the PR is redundant, because you\u2019ve got no outlets to do it in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the North West, there were maybe five or six different commercial radio stations. Now I don\u2019t think there is a single one left in Manchester. I think that creates a huge problem. You either are a really small artist playing pubs or you\u2019re doing arenas. That middle ground seems to have just gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially launching with a crowdfunding campaign last year to raise \u00a35,000 to support the new platform, he admits they were \u201cquite a way off\u201d that target. But the platform has \u201cshifted\u201d since its launch: Soledad has built a 300-strong WhatsApp group community, rolled out its first podcast episode featuring artists and creatives, and steadily published reviews and interviews on Substack.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a journalist, I thought Substack was going to be our bread and butter with the features, the interviews, the exclusives, and they\u2019ve actually performed better on Instagram. We\u2019ve done a few really good features that I\u2019m really proud of \u2014 unheard stories in Manchester that just haven\u2019t been covered anywhere else, including an interview with a rapper who had a brain haemorrhage and learnt to speak again.\u201d<\/p>\n

For its writers, the priority is simple: having \u201ca bit of money in the pot to pay people\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m honest with our writers. I tell them I can pay X amount, this is how much money we have in the bank account. Transparency is super important, because a lot of media organisations have students write for free, yet are making a lot of money and exploiting them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That honesty extends to what\u2019s happening behind the scenes too, as he admits the team are, for now at least, not making any profit.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to help journalists use this as a stepping stone. If one of our writers gets a byline in The Guardian or makes a career out of it, that\u2019s my job done. Likewise, seeing some of the artists we\u2019ve interviewed grow over time, and telling people about them, that trust is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conversations about funding are still ongoing and he says the team is \u201calways open to external funding\u201d via sponsorship or investment, but it has to be \u201cright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alongside supporting writers and artists, Soledad has focused on building its community to help keep Manchester\u2019s music scene connected. The WhatsApp group, which appears to be a real hive of activity, is set to be developed into a series of different channels, offering members \u201cexclusive access\u201d to content.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead as they focus on growing the platform in Manchester, he says the \u201cblueprint\u201d is there to replicate the same model in other music cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be interesting to see how it grows. If we can make it work in Manchester, which is a big if, then I think you could do the same in any other big music city in the world. It just needs the right group of people to run it, then the community almost takes care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From post-punk pioneers to the Brit-poppers, hip hop collectives and punk rockers, Manchester has long been celebrated for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-697614","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-manchester","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115899095179569446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}