How can a viral video reveal artists?

Non classé 4 Minutes

Some of the artists we know were revealed to the general public thanks to a viral video, in this article we will see 2 examples of this process and discuss how to make a viral music video.

Walk Off The Earth (WOTE)

This band from Canada launched their Youtube channels in 2008 to upload their covers and original songs. They have always loved to revisit well-known songs with their special catchy style and dynamic video clips. They all play several instruments and create original contents by singing harmonies, using boomwhackers or other unexpected instruments, or even by throwing guitars.

So they were looking for more and more creative ideas, when one day they decided to cover the song “Somebody That I Used to Know” from Gotye featuring Kimbra. What was creative about this cover? Well, all five players were playing on the same guitar. After nearly 30 attempts, the video was uploaded on January 2012 with all five members of the band playing (or tapping) on one guitar while singing in perfect harmony. This video went viral and spread immediately through social media. The band earned the recognition of some people like Russel Crow, Taylor Swift or Coldplay (the band asked them to cover one of their songs!). Today the video counts 186 millions of views and is still the most viewed on their YouTube channel. Thanks to this buzz, their subscriber account which had 20,000 members rocketed to around 250,000 in a couple of weeks and has reached 3.6 million today.

A month later, they signed a recording contract with Columbia Records. They released their album R.E.V.O (stands for “Realize Every Victory Outright”) on March 2013 and started a tour through US and Europe. They released another album in 2015 (“Sing It All Away”), they have been recording other singles since and they are still on tour today. The videos they create are mindblowing and when on stage, they put shows like you have never seen before. They are creative and mad, and that’s partly what makes their success.

To conclude on Walk Off The Earth, if today they are also known for their original songs, they clearly owe their success to their covers. That was, for them, the key to success!

L.E.J.

L.E.J. are the initials of Lucie, Elisa and Juliette, the names of the women of the French trio. These three childhood friends created the band in 2013 after studying classical music together in Paris.

On the 1st of August 2015, they uploaded a mashup of 11 famous songs from summer 2015, (as they did the year before). This special cover only involved the three girls’ voices, a cello played by one of them and some percussion. This went viral and the video was shared by some artists such as David Guetta or Bigflo & Oli (Yes you know them now). They were interviewed by every French magazines, they were invited on every TV shows, and even the Time Magazine wrote an article about them. Today the “Summer 2015” has been seen 80 million times on YouTube.

The trio, who had 18,000 fans on their Facebook page before this buzz, now gathers 800,000 of them. Their YouTube account has now 970,000 subscribers.

Everything changed so quickly for them, they were nominated for an award without any album as the best newcomers of the year 2015. They were signed by Mercury Records and were urged to release an album. They decided to create one entitled “En attendant l’album…” (“Awaiting the album…”) which contained 11 tracks, ten covers and their first original creation.

In 2016 they went on tour in France and abroad for some dates, they also sang during different events (like the Cannes Film Festival).

In June 2018 they released their first album “Poupées russes” (“Russian dolls”) only with original creations and they went on tour again.

Take away

For both these examples (and many more) the viral video was a cover of a well-know song (or a mashup of famous songs). It seems like a familiar tune can give unknown artists a great opportunity to reach a wide audience, more so than with their original songs. But to stand out from the ocean of covers you can find on YouTube, artists have to add something special that will make people share it because it is the general public who decides when a video is viral and not the artist itself. It could be anything, and the more unexpected it is, the more likely it is to be shared around on social media.

For both WOTE and L.E.J., originality was a big part of the creation. They appear in their music video and their attitude is really good, everything is neat and perfectly executed.

Some tips for a viral video could be to make a short video (around 3 minutes), involving some humour or emotion, and a good part of talent and surprise.

It can also be difficult to make this popularity lasts. Artists have to take this opportunity to reach the audience by creating new quality contents and show that they have future plans for their fans.

Walk Off The Earth accounts:

L.E.J. accounts:

References:

Post written by Clotilde F.

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Published by lwilkes

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