Music Industry Model Transformed by Social Networking

             Among the many trends taking place in the music industry today there is one which, an outgrowth of the prevalence of social networking as a mass of information exchange and instant person to person connection, has broken the traditional mold of the process an artist must engage in to get their music into the public awareness, ie charts, radio, listener polls. The most obvious aspect of this trend is how accessible social media has made the ears of the mass public to anyone interested in getting their music heard. What used to be the only route to success in this endeavor involving gaining the attention of a record label through a talent scout or some sort of agent and then signing contract after contract, ad nauseum before enduring the many legal and business driven hurdles down the road. This is still very much an active system today but with the social media platform becoming exponentially efficient at providing accessibility to a global audience, the playing field has been shifted maybe evening leveled. So if an aspiring songwriter grabs the attention of the global audience with their music without having any resources found in the traditional model of making it big, how would they do it and what would it look like?

             What is probably the best example of succeeding in reaching a global audience without being a signed artist with any of the traditional marketing resources can be found in one Alex Day, a British songwriter who not only broke into the iTunes Top 5 in multiple countries but also ended up breaking a Guiness World record. Day had a personal dream and goal of writing a Top 5 single but did not feel it was possible for him to achieve as he had no agent, manager, or recording contract. Nonetheless committed to his goal, Day decided to take a well thought-out first step: he began writing. Day recorded and produced three original pop songs one of which, titled "Forever Yours", ^th. Day submitted his song along with an entertaining music video he had his filmmaker roommate produce. The video very rapidly gained one million views on youtube.
he felt was to be his best candidate for ‘hit single’. Day set his sights on a chart in the UK called the “Christmas #1 Chart” which ranks the top five most popular songs each year on December 25

             The chart’s statistical sheet gave Day decent odds of sixteen to one of getting into the top five of this particular chart which put his odds better than those of British pop group Coldplay. Believing that he was on the cusp of a real shot at achieving his goal Day began seeking out any possible angle that could better his chances. In researching the guidelines and rules for the Christmas #1 Chart Day stumbled upon a loop hole which stated that a song’s chances of getting into the top five could be increased by reproducing the song into different digital versions, essentially, re-recording different versions of the song and making them available on Spotify and iTunes. Day produced eleven different musical versions of the same song so it could be bought and listened to multiple times. Twitter helped Day to spread the word about the multiple versions of his song and come that Christmas Eve, Day found the song to be in the second highest world-wide trend. On Christmas morning Day’s song broke into the Top 40 on the iTunes charts in multiple countries including the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. A few hours later it made the Top 20 surpassing pop artist Adele, boy group One Direction as well as Justin Bieber and Coldplay. Day’s song reached the Top 10 in the afternoon and Day received a call from a major UK radio station wanting to play the song for two million listeners. More calls came from Sony, Warner, and Universal. 

             When it was all over Alex Day’s song “Forever Yours” beat Coldplay by over two thousand sales. The Guiness Book of World Records called Day’s song the highest charting single by unsigned artist and, to drive the final point home, Forbes Magazine called Alex Day’s method in topping this market was the future of music industry marketing strategies. Why Alex Day’s story is so significant is the fact that he achieved such success in getting into the Top 5 iTunes chart with such limited resources and in such a short amount of time with nothing more than the support of a community of people he built through the same global networks available to us all. Although not all of us write pop songs or see ourselves as functioning in the pop music market it must be understood that music is meant to appeal to groups of people. Any genre has a following and a community that cares about that music most. What social media, networking, and marketing gives us is the ability to carry ourselves to the recognition and appreciation we desire without having to rely on as many representatives of a system traditionally functioning as the sole means to succeeding in gaining a large audience.

Source Links:

http://www.ted.com/conversations/19050/what_is_the_future_of_the_musi.html

http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/The-Future-of-Music-Alex-Day-at