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| Who the hell are are these guys? Read on... |
No such chart is perfect. With apologies to those artists I missed out on six months ago, I've cast the net wider, although this makes ranking some stuff difficult - do Rap Battles count? I've excluded these - but they might make an interesting sub-chart in their own right. I've also charted the increase in views over the past six months, which gives a rough indication of how an act may be progressing. In one case this has led to a spectacular and probably unrepeatable increase in viewing numbers. The new chart is after the jump.
So the slightly revised criteria are as follows:
- Videos must be less than three years old.
- Properly edited and produced work only: no live cameraphone stuff
- Numbers are for the two (sometimes only one) most viewed videos
- Minimum views total 10,000 - just doing that a hell of an achievement in itself.
- Current songs only - no classsics re-posted
- Figures are from YouTube as of Friday 23rd August; sorry, Vimeo, your numbers are too low.
West Midlands Acts viewing totals, August 2013
And here are the most significant percentage increases over February's numbers:
Act
|
Video
1
|
Video 2
|
totals
|
George
Barnett
|
Get
Lucky cover (above)
|
7,526,992
|
|
Oceans
Ate
|
2,424,725
|
||
Laura
Mvula
|
2,160,879
|
||
Editors
|
1,395,496
|
||
Peace
|
1,131,841
|
||
Swim
Deep
|
Honey (below)
|
910,299
|
|
Lady Leshurr
|
908,896
|
||
Electric Swing Circus
|
312,835
|
||
Jo Hamilton
|
159,996
|
||
The Enemy
|
158.755
|
||
Dexy's
|
129,683
|
||
No
|
94,636
|
||
Jaws
|
68,825
|
||
Destroyers
|
68,752
|
||
59,346
|
|||
Mahalia
|
56,616
|
||
Troumaca
|
54,673
|
||
Toy Hearts
|
48,495
|
||
46,894
|
|||
Malik MD7
|
46,635
|
||
Musgraves
|
39,804
|
||
UB40
|
32,354
|
||
The Wonderstuff
|
Oh No! (below)
|
27,332
|
|
Hanging Doll
|
22,649
|
||
15,681
|
|||
Superfood
|
12,239
|
||
Erica Nockalls
|
12,032
|
||
IEye
|
11,798
|
||
The Traps
|
10,831
|
And here are the most significant percentage increases over February's numbers:
George Barnett
|
2679.7%
|
Laura Mvula
|
523.6%
|
Jaws
|
170.0%
|
132.9%
|
|
Swim Deep
|
108.3%
|
Troumaca
|
54.2%
|
Mahalia
|
47.6%
|
Electric Swing Circus
|
44.9%
|
Jo Hamilton
|
42.7%
|
Peace
|
35.8%
|
Dexy's
|
29.4%
|
Oceans Ate
|
29.2%
|
Destroyers
|
20.7%
|
The Enemy
|
20.0%
|
15.7%
|
|
Musgraves
|
14.7%
|
Web success can be totally random. But get your nose in front, and things can go boom.
While massive congratulations are due to George Barnett for his stupendous numbers, this has to be a one-off. Over seven million views went to George's excellent one-man band cover of Daft Punk, which was of course the hit of summer 2013; this has reflected back on George's numbers: he's got more views than the next four acts between them.
Covers of hits are all over the net, Generally they're pretty lame. George's is absolutely not. It is totally watchable. The video works because of George's enthusiasm, editing skills and music chops. It's damn good. But it's a one-off, a likeable novelty. The massive audience it pulled in was not due to audience loyalty to George, and the spillover to views of his own material has been relatively small.
The web does this all the time, bigging up trivia, and feeding an unquenchable appetite for the novel. OMG! Check this out, it's amaaaaazing!!! You look for fifteen seconds, and then you're off somewhere else.
So, while this is a breathtaking achievement, and has probably edged George closer to a record deal, it hasn't sealed things. Now was exactly the time to capitalise on all this.
Rock still matters, even if it's not fashionable
Covers of hits are all over the net, Generally they're pretty lame. George's is absolutely not. It is totally watchable. The video works because of George's enthusiasm, editing skills and music chops. It's damn good. But it's a one-off, a likeable novelty. The massive audience it pulled in was not due to audience loyalty to George, and the spillover to views of his own material has been relatively small.
The web does this all the time, bigging up trivia, and feeding an unquenchable appetite for the novel. OMG! Check this out, it's amaaaaazing!!! You look for fifteen seconds, and then you're off somewhere else.
So, while this is a breathtaking achievement, and has probably edged George closer to a record deal, it hasn't sealed things. Now was exactly the time to capitalise on all this.
Rock still matters, even if it's not fashionable
Note the stellar numbers for Oceans Ate Alaska, Swim Deep and Jaws
Loyalty ain't what it used to be
While Dexy's relaunch has been affably recieved, it's not up there yet. On the other hand, more recent heroes like the Enemy and the Editors seem to be bearing up, and while the new figures aren't remotely close to those of a couple of decades back, The Wonderstuff are growing again. However, UB40 have racked up nice numbers in less than a month on no publicity.
Record Company promotion comes in handy. Sometimes.
Laura Mvula and Peace can attest to that, as can Troumaca to a lesser extent, possibly because they're on a smaller label.
Savvy self-promotion can work a treat
Shining examples: Electric Swing Circus, Lady Leshurr and Jo Hamilton, and not forgetting Erica Nockalls, 1Eye and Mahalia. Mahalia doesn't seem to have any official videos, but she is all over the web with proper live in the studio clips from outfits like SBTV. Note too that taking your music into a new market can work wonders too - Toy Hearts are up by nearly 50 percent. And it was interesting to note the 20% growth for the Destroyers. Sadly, both their songs were written and fronted by Paul Murphy, who is no longer with the band.
I'll repeat the exercise in another six months. If I have missed anyone out who should be in this chart, please email me directly through the blog (top left), and I will correct things.
Finally, here's the video I enjoyed the most: thank you, Wonderstuff. That Nockalls woman gets everywhere....
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