Viral Videos Break New Artists!

As we all know, promotion is extremely important to break a new artist into the mainstream. Promotion has been categorized in the past as anything from radio play to grassroots street promotion. Thanks to the advent of the Internet, promotion efforts for artists are so much different---some would even say more convenient. Essentially, the Internet is disrupting the way artists have been marketed in the past.

Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook target specific demographics and enable a larger span of "word-of-mouth" promotion; these sites allow Japanese music fans to become acquainted with American artists, for example. Back in July 2006, the band OK Go gained popularity via YouTube for their "Here It Goes Again" music video, gaining over 12 million views to date. With the gained success in record sales and popularity from this video, the band received a Grammy award for "Best Short Form Music Video" in March.

Continuing in this fashion, artist like Amy Winehouse are getting a name for themselves in the U.S. thanks to viral videos. About a month ago, a video called "Rehabitual Britney" was posted on sites like Spinner and YouTube that featured spliced images of Britney Spears that made it to appear that she was singing along to the Amy Winehouse track "Rehab".



....And the original version




To date, this video has over 1 million views and counting. Thanks to the success that Winehouse has found on such viral websites, she is beginning to get airplay on AC and AAA formats like Star 98.7 in Los Angeles and 92.9 WBOS in Boston, respectively. Additionally, thanks to collaborations with artists like Ghostface Killah on the track "You Know I'm No Good" Winehouse has earned herself a spot performing at this year's Coachella music festival in Indio, CA.

But this isn't all to say that Amy Winehouse hasn't drawn a following before her U.S. debut. Winehouse is actually a major recording artist in the U.K, receiving the award for "British Female Solo Artist" at this year's Brit Awards. Similarly, OK Go, before their sudden U.S. popularity in 2007, did quite well in the U.K. Either the music industry is experiencing a British invasion, or they sincerely need to reconsider how artists are marketed and promoted to the public. I'm guessing the latter is more plausible.