Indie Artist BAKER Responds: Did Billboard & O Music Awards Get Suckered By Fake YouTube Views?
In yesterday's post Hypebot's Clyde Smith asked, "Did Billboard & O Music Awards Get Suckered By Fake YouTube Views?". In the article, Smith looked at the success of indie artist BAKER, sharing stats and opinions, but drawing no firm conclusions. Shorefire, BAKER's public relations firm, contacted us asking if the artist could "to set the record straight".
Dear Mr. Smith, Hypebot and anyone else who's interested,
Thank you for taking the time to write about me. I’m always flattered when
anyone discusses my music. But I want to set the record straight.
I moved to LA at the beginning of this year to finish my first album. In May I
wrote and recorded this song with my collaborators, made the video in June and
released it in mid-July. Both me and my management did what we could to get the
word out, including sending emails, broadening search terms, and a google
Adwords campaign for the first 6 weeks. The video was gathering some steam and
really positive feedback and then around September the video started to do very
well. It just so happened that the spike (and my now growing fan base) are on
the other side of the world.
I have never bought any views or followers on YouTube or any other social
media. On Twitter, I'm constantly seeing people sharing the video (even if they
choose not to follow me). The article also failed to mention my very real
presence on Facebook or all of the tribute videos that fans of mine from
Mexico, Italy, or Korea have made. I've done everything I can as a debut artist
to raise awareness about my music but I have not "cheated" as this
article suggests. It is also worth mentioning the mp3 has not been released and
the only way people can see and/or hear "Not Gonna Wait" is
through YouTube or Soundcloud.
As for my Webster Hall gig, as you can imagine I was disappointed with the
turnout but I didn’t expect it to sell out since most of my fans are young and
live thousands of miles away from Webster Hall.
What this article oddly left out was the merit of the song, the video, and my
integrity as an artist working in this constantly changing industry. I'm very
proud of it and couldn't be happier with the opportunities that its popularity
has given me (such as the invitation to perform at Webster). I'm not sure if
I'll ever know what made people -real flesh and blood humans – click on my
video but, despite this article's cynical views, maybe, just maybe, it was the
quality of the content.
The best of article.
Funny how they only got the word out about the video in SE Asia.
Wah.