YouTube personality and musician Alex Day made his plea on Reddit on Wednesday: help my new song “Stupid, stupid” top the charts on Christmas Day in the UK. Or don’t. But if you “really wanna see it beat the traditional label acts this Christmas in the UK and beyond,” then please pre-order his track on iTunes as soon as possible, as it goes live December 16.
Is Alex Day The Future Of Music?
Alex Day is what Forbes calls “the future of music.” Day has no manager and is signed to no label, and yet has still managed to get two singles in the top 20, and sell more than 300,000 downloads in 2012. All through YouTube.
Day employs no middlemen so doesn’t have to divvy up his profits, which is why he is the “[embodiment of] the musician – the artist – of the future: self-sufficient, self-funded, and self-motivated.” The death of the current music industry is nigh, and Alex Day is leading the hit men.
Despite being a digital do-it-yourself musical prodigy, Day did admit to the Guardian he would sign with a label if they provided him with “tour support and marketing,” but otherwise, “if it means I can release the singles I want to when I want to, then I obviously just rather do it myself.”
Popular Success
Getting his new single to No. 1 won’t be easy, but Day’s last Christmas track, ‘Forever Yours,’ reached the No. 4 slot last year, and made it into the Guiness book of World Records for the highest performing unsigned single in history. To date, Day’s YouTube channel has seen more than 102 million views, with 597,000 subscribers.
So far, Reddit has responded kindly to Day’s plea, with his thread receiving more than 300 upvotes. His video on YouTube for his single, uploaded today, is already trending, with the viewcount frozen at the auspicious viewcount number of 301. Influential YouTubers, like the New York Times best-selling author John Green, have been tweeting his video too.
