STACK NZ Jan/Feb Summer Edition Issue 70

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On the
JB Stereo
Megadeth
Dystopia
Sia
This Is Acting
Roy Orbison
One Of The Lonely
Ones
Bloc Party
Hymns
Panic! At The Disco
Death Of A Bachelor
Various Artists
Relax & Unwind:
Summer
Hinds
Leave Me Alone
Aoife O’Donovan
In The Magic Hour
Various Artists
The Hateful Eight OST
David Bowie
Blackstar
I t only seems like yesterday when
MySpace was the coolest new website
around, an online platform that provided
new artists like Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen and some
young teenager called Adele their first taste of
stardom. MySpace has long been surpassed by
YouTube as a place for unknowns to reach a
potentially a huge global audience, but as a platform
for creating new music star, it has never been more
powerful.
Charlie Puth is the latest pop sensation to make
the leap into the mainstream viaYouTube. He first
came to attention in 2011 when he and a friend’s
cover of Adele’s Someone LikeYou went viral and
caught the attention of Ellen DeGeneres. He went
on to appear on her show twice and watched his
international fan base grow both on and offline. “It
got me in front of 30 million people,” he says of the
experience. “It pushed me into a different area I
never thought I would reach.”
And his career went into overdrive when he
teamed up last year withWiz Khalifa for the ballad
SeeYou Again, which played out over the final
scene in Fast & Furious 7. The video of the song,
which spent eight weeks at #1 here, has racked up
more than 1.3 billion views onYouTube to date.
This month, Puth releases his debut album Nine
Track Mind and he looks well-placed to translate his
online success to records, if only for the fact that he
is already established as a songwriter, having wrote
and produced material for artists such as Lil Wayne,
Jason Derulo, StevieWonder, MeghanTrainor, Trey
Songz, and Fergie. A well-sung, catchy bedroom
cover is always going to create a bit of an online
buzz but when it comes records, most pop stars
need original material.
And as Ed Sheeran – another who made his
name on platforms such asYouTube – pointed out
in an interview a few years back, ultimately social
media is still just a marketing tool. “The thing
people have confused about me is they think I
became successful because of YouTube, Twitter
and Facebook,’ he says. ‘They are tools that help,
100 per cent, andYouTube is a brilliant way to get
yourself out there. There are definitely ways to use
the internet. But to rely on it is not a good idea.”
JB Listener
Not yet, but the rise of
Charlie Puth shows how
importantYouTube is.
DID YOUTUBE
KILL THE
RADIO STAR?
Charlie Puth
Ed Sheeran
THIS MONTH at
Photo: Ben Watts
visit MUSIC
30 SUMMER EDITION 2016
MUSIC