Unearthing Talent in the Soundcloud Generation

If you decide to name your child “Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell”, you’d better hope they become famous enough to get away with it. Luckily, she did. When Billie Eilish released her first major-label album in March, it went straight to number 1 on the US Billboard charts. With that, a small footnote of history was written — Eilish, a 17-year old singer-songwriter, became the first artist born in the 21st Century to make it to the top spot.

In some respects, Eilish is emblematic of how technology and social media has changed the way talent is discovered in the music industry. Increasingly, the biggest hits are as likely to originate from a viral video or Soundcloud stream as from the creative department of a major label. At just 14 years old, Eilish recorded “Ocean Eyes”, a song written and produced by her older brother and uploaded to Soundcloud. The song was originally recorded for her dance teacher to serve as the backing track for a choreographed routine.

However, it soon became obvious that the track was destined for much bigger things, racking up thousands of streams on Soundcloud. The song was a perfectly crafted emotional cocktail for the teenagers of Generation Z — combining the thematic simplicity of pop with a wistful, elegiac quality. In the years which followed, Ocean Eyes became a bona fide Internet sensation, now boasting 115 million views on YouTube and 200 million streams on Spotify.

Stream a little stream of me

The top of the Billboard singles charts tells a similar story. The current top spot is occupied by Old Town Road, a fusion of rap and country by Lil Nas X, a rapper and songwriter from Atlanta Georgia. He penned the track after dropping out of college to focus on his music career. When recording the tune, he incorporated a beat by the Dutch record producer YoungKio, who had made it available for purchase on an online store.

The song first began to gain momentum when it was used as the backing track to the “Yeehaw Challenge” meme on the social media site TikTok. The social media craze involved dressing as a cowboy or cowgirl and dancing in a rodeo style to the track. There was controversy over whether the track should be included on the country chart or not — a debate that ultimately paled into insignificance when the song reached the top of the regular billboard chart.

The cases of Eilish and Lil Nas X are just two of a growing number of artists who have managed to tap into the zeitgeist online to achieve musical success without going through the usual channels, and the industry is in the process of adapting. The job of an A&R representative at a record label used to involve gut instinct and shoe leather — getting out in the field and talking to venues, DJs promoters and songwriters in search of talented musicians to sign. Nowadays, there is an increasing recognition within the industry that talent spotters need to have a firm grasp of analytics as well an artistic ear.

In truth, talent spotting in the music industry was always quite hit and miss. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates that while global spend on A&R totals $2.8 billion, the ratio of signed artists who go on to be commercially successful is somewhere between 1 in 4 and 1 in 10. Essentially, the overwhelming majority of signed artists are commercially unsuccessful. In the boom times when CD sales were at their peak at the turn of the millennium, this creative waste was not a major problem. But digitization brought falling revenues and an increased pressure on A&R departments to deliver a higher return on investment.

This has led to the development of businesses which specialise in analysing data for talent discovery. Former Warner Bros A&R man Conrad Withey launched a firm called Instrumental, which provides a digital dashboard which enables subscribers to search for unsigned artists who are gaining traction on Spotify by being added to playlists. So if you are looking for unsigned British folk singers who are on more than 20 Spotify playlists, this tool will help to narrow down the search. Withey’s ultimate vision is to unearth hidden opportunities by focussing on metrics that others miss.

Sometimes “pay for play” pays off

But while Spotify has the largest market share of any music streaming service, Soundcloud has proven to be a fertile ground for emerging talent. Of all the major music streaming services, Soundcloud has the lowest barrier to entry for artists. It operates on a “freemium” business model whereby any musician can upload up to 180 minutes of music for free, but need to upgrade to a pro account thereafter. In general, all tracks are made available for free to listeners. Thus, while services like Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal are ultimately funded by listeners and have a commercial imperative to “give the people what they want”, Soundcloud is funded by artists, often making it a more useful platform for discovery.

In addition to artists like Eilish getting their break on the platform, this highly open approach has given birth to a whole genre of music dubbed “Soundcloud rap”. It has been described by some critics as a reaction to the smoothness and perceived overproduction of mainstream rap music. By contrast, Souncloud rap features stripped-back beats and primitively recorded, mumbling vocal tracks, while the artists themselves often cultivate a rough image, involving facial tattoos and brightly dyed hair. Overall, the effect is to lend the music a more visceral, punk-like aesthetic. The scene has spawned a handful of stars with unpronounceable names like XXXTentacion, Lil Pump, and Smokepurpp.

Finding the Next Billie Eilish

Thus, whether looking at the pop stars at the top of the charts or niche and emerging subcultures further down, musical success increasingly has its roots in online communities rather than physical venues. At Utopia, we have developed digital tools to track what music is being played globally — including radio play, streaming, public performance and broadcast in venues and bars. This vast trove of constantly evolving data will enable the talent spotters of tomorrow to gain a unique insight into emerging trends. So perhaps the next time an artist like Billie Eilish comes along, it won’t take 12 months and millions of free streams before her song is released on a major label.

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