viral (her own song ‘Settle Down’ has since
surpassed 48 million views).
FIND A NICHE AND PUSH IT
In other cases, it may be the music itself
that is unique enough to receive pick-up,
especially if it comes with an intriguing
band/song name. Take ‘Ffunny Friends’
by Unknown Mortal Orchestra (UMO). The
odd spelling of the title and mysterious-
seeming bandname was enough to get
attention from online media, especially
when the track turned out to be an odd
mix of lo-fi indie music and funk put out
by a then-anonymous musician. The track
spread like wildfire and soon UMO had a
record deal which led to a long, successful
career.
While every song can’t aspire to be
groundbreakingly unique, there is a lot
that can be done to draw an overseas
audience in. The song ‘Young Blood’ by
Naked and Famous was an undeniably
catchy song that was always going to be
popular. However, the band later reached
beyond their indie rock following by also
arranging a remix by hitmaking DJ, Tiesto
(it appeared on his album, Club Life Vol.2,
which reached No.14 on the US charts).
The original song initially reached overseas
fans via its beautiful music video, filmed
in locations across Australia, LA, London,
and New Zealand (in some cases, using
footage shot by videographers who lived
in these countries). This meant the video
was impossible to place in one location and
therefore had an international feel to it. This
placeless quality also applies to the viral
YouTube hits created by Princess Chelsea
(‘Cigarette Duet’) and Jonathan Bree
(‘You’re So Cool’) though in these cases the
peculiar video concepts also helped push
them to success.
USE YOUR MONEY WISELY
There are literally millions of music artists
across the world trying to get a break,
which has led to some unscrupulous
operators in this market hoping to
separate fools from their money. However,
if it sounds too good to be true, then it
probably is.
One example is websites that offer the
chance to send music directly to hot playlist
curators and bloggers for a small fee
(sometimes as little as US$1) or even for no
cost at all. Often these sites will require you
to listen to and subscribe to a number of
playlists the website itself has set-up. Those
who pay the fee may receive plays, but
only from other artists who’ve been forced
to listen to these playlists in exchange for a
free sign-up. the right venues overseas while getting on
radio and in the hottest magazines, until
a groundswell of interest was created in
your act. These days, it may be possible
to do some of this heavy-lifting via the
internet but you still need to know where
your musical community gathers (online
at least).
In effect, it’s a complex form of pay-for-
play. The key point is this – some of these
schemes are a rip-off and your chances of
going viral via these routes are close to
zero. It is better to reach listeners in a way
that is likely to create real fans, rather than
just getting streams from people who were
just listening to a playlist in order to get
their own song heard. In many cases, it might actually be better
to have a decent following within a strongly
loyal musical community rather than having
just one song go viral in isolation. An act
who has ten songs with 200k streams may
be in a better position than an act with a
single song at a million streams, because it
is more likely listeners will give each of their
successive songs another 200k streams
(and buy merch by the artist or come to
their live shows).
So where is the best place to spend money
to promote one’s music? Firstly, you need
to ask yourself where you and friends
discover music. If you ask around and the
same website name comes up repeatedly
then that’s an obvious place to purchase
advertising when the time is right (e.g.,
when you have a new release or tour
coming up).
New bands do sometimes try to promote
themselves by spending up big on social
media promotions for their first single, but
it can be questionable if this really helps -
ask yourself, if a random band appeared
on your feed, what would tempt you to
engage with it? Also look at the options
in the backend of sites like Facebook. It’s
possible to cater ads to a certain audience,
so if you have an upcoming show in a
particular city then your ad could focus on
people there.
Ads can be most useful when an act
already has a decent amount of followers -
this means their ad is just ensuring all their
followers see a certain post. In this case,
they’re just spending a small amount on
advertising to promote new releases/tours/
etc to their existing fans. How does an act
build up this kind of following in the first
place? Let’s look at this next.
TAP INTO THE WORLDWIDE
MUSICAL COMMUNITY
In the old days, connecting with like-
minded music listeners overseas required
touring and playing with the right bands in
To achieve this, there’s no way around it
but to research what’s happening in the
community online and start connecting
with people one-to-one. This might mean
a lot of emails to small blogs or touching
base with bands overseas at a similar level.
As your network grows, the chance of
each new single taking off increases. The
algorithms used by streaming services
and YouTube will pick up on a burst of
activity for any new release and are likely
to amplify it. To help move the alogorithm
for services, encourage your fans to follow
you or subscribe to your channels – a follow
makes a much bigger dfference than an
individual stream or view.
The examples I’ve given above might
seem like the artists just got lucky in being
picked up out of the blue, but this isn’t
the case. Benee was already signed to
Republic Records (US) and had pick-up for
her song ‘Soaked’; Ruban from UMO had
the experience of taking The Mint Chicks
to the US, so knew where he should send
the first song by his new act; The Naked
and Famous had already released two EPs,
signed to a respected local management
company, and played at industry showcases
CMJ and SXSW.
In the end, all these acts had done enough
groundwork that once they had the right
song, they were ready to take off. Having a
viral hit might seem an easy way to success,
but your best route to it might just be old-
fashioned hard work.
NZ MUSIC COMMISSION MAY BOOK 2020 • 17