Right now, most original music on YouTube is poorly produced covers. Often just a single musician. Sometimes in their living room or bedroom. There’s too much crap on YouTube for serious musicians to stand out.
Imagine a service similar to YouTube. Except it only hosted originally produced and independently recorded music. Everything has to be approved before it’s published on the platform. Ensuring good production quality recordings.
Could a talented band release original music on that platform and launch a career? They would need to copyright and protect their work first. The band could tour and promote their music through social media? Could they produce hits this way?
Let’s say that new, hot band refused to sign a contract with a major label. Would the band be just as successful without a major record label behind them?
I’m curious if musicians still need to sign with record labels? Elvis wandered in off the street and recorded at Sam Phillips studio. We all know how that worked out. He did sign with a label. But would he need to in 2016?
Radio might be a problem. Is there anything preventing them from playing singles that aren’t from a record label?
Here is an interesting starting point. This came up in conversation with friends only days ago. Although slanted more towards movies and TV. Someone came up with Top 9 Musicians Who Got Discovered On The Internet. Some interesting tales, and lessons to learn.
Interesting list. I’d forgotten Bieber started on YouTube. I’m very surprised to learn Adele started with a demo on MySpace. That’s a cool success story.
I know Grace VanderWaalthat just won America’s Got Talent and she started on YouTube.
YouTube has helped get some artists on The Voice or other shows.
It seems like the traditional record labels won’t be relevant that much longer. Unless they modernize and find a updated business model.
There are many examples. Lindsey Sterling has built her entire fan base online, and she’s playing good size venues on this tour like Kansas City’s 2400 seat Music Hall.
I’m a big fan of The Gregory Brothers, AKA Autotune The News. Besides the humorous stuff, they’re brilliant pop songwriter, and they sell their tunes on iTunes.
Another notable one is the a cappella group Straight No Chaser, which had originally been a college group. In 2006, a YouTube recording of them doing a humorous version of The 12 Days of Christmas in 1998 became a viral hit – as a result of that, a number of the vocalists who had been in the group in '98 came back together, and have had a fair amount of success (five albums, several tours, many TV appearances).
The main thing a big label brings is their producers, songwriters, and studio musicians.
A lot of artists and bands need a producer to find songs to record and develop a unique style & sound that will sell. Bieber owes much of his early success to Usher.
Independent music on the Net has more freedom of expression. But these musicians still need a good producer to help them fully develop and express their talent.
Some musicians may want to release their own stuff. Without anyone packaging it for commercial success. That’s valid too.
Postmodern Jukebox has had pretty great success using nothing but social media and youtube. They started out in basically one guy’s living room and are now doing international tours, with dozens of tunes for sale on various digital services (iTunes, Amazon, etc). They don’t even write original music, though all their covers are really quite unique and well done (they do modern hits in retro contexts, ie- restyled as swing, motown, etc). Several famous, established musicians have performed with them, and some not-that-famous musicians have received great exposure through them.
I’m not sure what you would define as “hits,” but there have been quite a few musicians who were able to reach a very niche audience and have financial success that way, when they obviously would have failed if they were going the traditional producers + mass appeal route. Jonathan Coulton is kind of the exemplar here, having found enough of a dedicated fan base for “nerd rock” to quit his software development job and focus on music full time. He tours and manages his own website for online distribution. He uses publishing/distro services like CDBaby for physical media.
Anyone who can build up a fan base and make money touring clubs is going to eventually do so without a record company. They simply aren’t interested in anyone who can’t sell 100,000 copies of each release. But if you can record your own music, you can have your own CDs and LPs made, and make more money selling 1,000 copies, getting $10 from a 12 CD sold at a club gig is better than getting .10 from that same CD distributed by a label. Or more likely an invoice from the record company that shows you owe them money.
Getting $10 from the club gig that sells 15 copies at a club gig is not better than getting a dime from the record company that sells 15,000. And pays you even before the record is recorded.
Walk Off The Earth from Burlington, Canada hit it big on Youtube before being signed. They mostly did covers for years, but (imo) what put them ahead was they were creative takes on hits, which peaked when they covered “Somebody That I Used To Know” with the entire band playing a single guitar. That’s what got them signed to a label and a bunch of tv appearances (Ellen, of course). They’re also big advocates of self-promoting on the internet, and they’ve featured lots of other Canadian artists in collabs to share the exposure.
They aren’t a household name yet, but I’d rank them up there with Lindsey Stirling.
Chance the Rapper doesn’t have a label and he doesn’t sell his music. You can download his 3 albums in full off a mixtape site, DatPiff.
He’s won some BET awards and was nominated for an MTV award. He’s up for Best New Artist at the Grammys this year. He was the first un-signed artist to ever be on SNL, and was back a few weeks later with Kanye West (he does a LOT of guesting on other tracks). He was on *Ellen *a few weeks ago. He did a commercial for Nike, and is currently in a commercial for Kit Kat. He also wrote and performed a special song for ESPN’s tribute to Muhammed Ali.
I just read in Rolling Stone about an artist named Ruth B. She was posting Vines (6-second videos) of herself singing just lines from other peoples’ songs, then posted herself singing a line from an original song, then that song blew up and now she has a recording contract.
So…people have been getting music careers from the Internet for years.
Another current sensation is Shawn Mendes. He started on YouTube and he plays the guitar and writes his own songs. He’s barely 19, but he’s got a huge tour coming up and he’s been out less than two years, I think. I think he’s extremely talented, but it doesn’t hurt that he’s got pin-up good looks and has probably captured the hearts of the tween demographic.
150 in the hand is better than .10 sometime in the future.
Did you ever read Janis Ian’s The Internet Debacle that she wrote for *Performing Songwriter *magazine?
In 37 years as a recording artist, I’ve created 20+ albums for major labels, and I’ve never once received a royalty check that didn’t show I owed them money.
That sounds like a shocking and outrageous statement if you are unfamiliar with recording industry practices. You know the reason she “owed them money”? It’s because she received advances against sales. She doesn’t have to wait until sometime in the future to get paid, she got paid in advance.
In the standard recording industry contract, a performer receives an advance payment and promises to make a certain number of recordings. That advance payment is theirs to keep even if their records are a total flop. But, if their records sell, the record company keeps the proceeds until the advance is paid back. At that point, the performer starts getting checks. Except for performers who get super mega-hits, few actually manage to repay their advances. And, in case you are wondering, the advances do not become personal debts – the performers do not have to pay them back if their records don’t sell well.
And, of course, if they write their own songs, this disregards the publishing payments that they receive. (Why do you think she is still receiving checks when she owes the label money?)
If you don’t have a record label, nobody is going to give you advances. You live hand-to-mouth.
