Portugal The Man is "made" but my concern was that the new bands that are still struggling to make it should not take inspiration from this and create a google sheets website. That would be terrible for their career.
For concerts, I tend to look for who is coming to venues near me, rather than looking at 200 band websites and hoping they are both on tour and near me.
Do most people go to the band’s actual site to learn this stuff?
But for artists who are not well known, a website can help make a great first impression.
I found this Apple Music for artists page a good intro on why promo/marketing materials are important.
https://artists.apple.com/support/1121-why-an-electronic-pre...
YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify would all rank much higher.
Even as someone who doesn’t do social media, I would still turn to YouTube and Spotify before I’d even bother looking for their band website. In fact the only time over ever visited an artists website in the last 10 years was to buy merch from their official stores.
Furthermore, people’s first impression of an artist is seeing them live at a festival, as a support act for another band they went to see, or even just that artist playing in the bar. Maybe they heard that artist on an independent radio station. But it would always be about the artist. Literally no one would have heard a band name and think “I will check out their website before I bother listening to any of their songs”. (Or at least if anyone does, they’re not the kind of people who give a crap about music so wouldnt be buying their albums nor going to their gigs anyway).
I’m not saying your advice is bad per se, just that you’re vastly over exaggerating the importance of a good website for people’s perceptions of an artist.
Not a counterpoint, just coincide I guess.