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Needless to say, it’s becoming more difficult to make it in the music industry. Every generation’s passing sparks more talent, more musical diversity, and more competition. One great way to stand apart from the ‘old-school’ way in getting noticed is to utilize the many tools provided by the age of technology, and in this case YouTube is a safe bet.
According to Rodney Ho for Radio and TV Talk, YouTube has become the source for the rebirth of the music video. It has created a forum for unsigned artists to highlight their talents to the 410 million unique visitors in the United States and 1.4 billion worldwide visitors according to Google Ad Planner.
Ho points out that YouTube is responsible for making the careers of prominent artists like teen sensation Justin Bieber and OK Go, who’s 2006 treadmill video for Here It Goes Again “Was not only a successful video, but it made their career” as stated by Jay Frank, senior vice president for CMT’s music strategy. And what better way to get noticed than featuring videos of yourself or your band playing songs with major popular appeal.
Boyce Avenue is a band made up of three brothers that coined a YouTube following by doing just that. They have covered songs from the likings of Katy Perry, Bruno Mars and The Black Eyed Peas, all of which have very successful music careers and mass followings on every social network. As seen on their YouTube channel, Boyce Avenue posted 52 videos of popular cover songs before introducing the world to their original songs. The following chart displays YouTube views for four of their cover songs and four of their original songs:
As seen in the chart the total views for Boyce Avenues cover songs is over 12 million views which makes up for about 67 percent of their total views compared to their 5 million original song views. Since starting their YouTube channel in 2008 and utilizing the power of cover songs, Boyce Avenue has signed to 3 Piece Records and embarked on multiple tours in the US and abroad.
Furthermore, at home talents have been recognized by their cover song videos by the artists that originally composed the track. Paramore’s newest track Monster has brought forth many cover versions, one of which was posted on Haley Williams’ blog (ran by Williams herself) which led many viewers to Drew Tabor’s YouTube channel that has received 28 thousand views in one week compared to her original track Not My Life that has acquired 14 thousand views in six months time.
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| Haley Williams from Paramore posted Drew Tabor's cover of Monster on her Tumblr Blog |
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