Becoming A Pop Star With Zero Experience: How To Hack The Music Industry In Under 8 Weeks

This is a guest post by charts-topping musician Alex Day.

Just over a year ago, I knew exactly what I wanted to get out of life…but I had no idea how to get it. What I wanted was to be a successful musician in the UK with a Top Five single in the charts, my song played on radio and my story in the newspapers–but I didn’t (and still don’t) have is a manager, an agent, a radio plugger, a PR person, or any of the other things people say you need to succeed in music. I didn’t even know how to produce my own music without outside help, and I never played live because I preferred uploading YouTube videos where I could spend time getting it right.

Two months later, my song “Forever Yours” was #4 in the UK on Christmas Day during the highest-selling singles week of the year, having sold 100,000 copies globally. I was listening to my song played out on national radio as a Top Five track (sending Coldplay down to #5) and I broke a Guinness World Record for the highest-charting single ever by an unsigned artist.

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To do this, I didn’t get any of the things I was missing, like an agent or producer. Instead, I looked at what I could do that was different from the big artists that spend all of their time touring. They don’t have time to make YouTube videos regularly, or read through all of the rules of the charts looking for loopholes, because they get other people to do that for them. Since it was just me, I would have to get to work on my own.

In three steps, here’s how I learned how to hack the music industry:

1. Set A Clear Goal

I’m a big fan of unrealistic goals, a point impressed on me by Tim Ferriss after reading his world-changing book, The 4-Hour Workweek. I had recorded songs before with other producers, so I called up the same studio and booked a session before I could change my mind. Now there was a solid date to work towards: I’d paid the money for a day in the studio so I had to be competent enough to produce by then! I listened to all my old songs and picked out what I liked. I also listened to my favorite songs by other artists and wrote out what the common elements were, and by the time of game day, I was sitting in the studio with the engineer saying “What do you want to do to this track?”

I froze. I stared forward at him, hoping I looked calm while in my head, I screamed “I don’t know the answer to this question!!!”

Finally, I said hesitantly, “The song should have…drums”.

He smiled. “Okay! Let’s load up some drum sounds.” And we were off! You do it by doing it.

Soon after I forced myself to start producing songs on my own, I decided I was going to try for the UK’s Christmas Number One. Anyone who’s seen the film, Love Actually will know that the Christmas Number One is a pretty big deal in the UK. A lot of artists were releasing songs that week but the Christmas top spot is a very prestigious title–so prestigious that hardly anyone was actually going for it.

If I was just another artist releasing a song, my goals would have been the same as everyone else’s: “sell lots, get played, and get in the charts.” Instead, my goal became “get to the top.” Very few people were actually trying to get to the top, so even though the goal is that much harder, it gives you less competition because other people have already limited themselves below you.

I’ll go into more detail in a moment on how this campaign worked out for me, but the main point is that your goal needs to start with a big dream. Thanks to my unrealistic goal of “reach number one”, I reached number four, and I completely believe that if my goal had been “get into the Top 100,” I probably would have made it somewhere in the Top 100 but nowhere near as high as I did. Impossible goals actually spur people on to support you because people like supporting the underdog to a victory. Everyone wants to be on the winning team. As soon as my song started selling and crept up the iTunes charts, everyone suddenly thought “he might actually do this!” and so they told their friends, bought more copies, and so on.

A clear goal also helps you focus. What do you want to achieve? If you can say it in one-sentence, you can make that a filter for any opportunities that come your way.

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2. Be Strong On YouTube

I’ve been saying for years that YouTube is the most underestimated platform for new content online. In the last one or two years, it has started to get real recognition from mainstream sources, but only because mainstream content is going there. The underground world of content creators making incredible art, educational tools, smart community discussions, and independent music is still largely being ignored.

With zero help from traditional music and video people like agents, producers, directors, and PR folks, I’ve been able to amass an audience of over 650,000 people online who subscribe to my channel and are notified about every new video I create. I’ve had over a hundred and ten million plays to my videos, more than One Direction’s official channel (sitting on ninety-four million at the time of writing), with none of the label or management heavyweights on my side. Here’s one of my recent videos, “Stupid Stupid”:

The net result for me was that:

• I had an audience ready to be excited about my goal
• People cared about me, not just my music, so they were personally supportive of what I wanted to achieve
• I had my own press outlet: instant access to an audience that I could announce ideas to whenever I felt the need without having to go through newspapers or TV

I’d definitely recommend making YouTube videos if you want to move forward, no matter what your goals are. But the most important thing is to do it because you enjoy it, not just because I’ve suggested it. The Internet, as we all know, is big on transparency. If you don’t like talking to the camera, make regular songs (or stand-up, or short films, whatever your gig is). But remember, people want to get to know the real you–a lot of the videos I make aren’t actually about music.

Don’t be worried about amassing an audience of that size straight away. Everyone starts at zero and it doesn’t happen overnight. The good news is YouTube is very kind to new creators. Their related videos algorithm is a great way to find new stuff and original content is featured on their home page daily and in their staff blogs. If you want to build an audience, just start with the first video and build from there. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to a camera, just think of it like a conversation to a friend: we all have conversations we wish we could go back over and edit out the stupid bits we said, and when you make a YouTube video, you can!

For more inspiration and networking you should also look to other creators you enjoy and admire, and reach out to them. Most people have Twitter or a contact email and will be responsive if you have a good idea for something that you can work on together. It’ll help you because you’ll know someone with experience who can give advice (and share their audience, if they like you), and it’ll help them if you can give them a good video idea for you both to be a part of. Big YouTube names are making lots of regular content, so any idea they don’t have to come up with is a help!

3. Find and Exploit Loopholes

Those first two tips are a great foundation. This last one is what gets you to the top.

What I’ve learned about labels in the last year is this: they have no imagination. They’ll do the same things everyone else does, right down to the sound of the music they release and how that music is promoted. Because the music they’re putting out is just processed the same way as everything else, nobody’s thinking about how they can exploit the rules. They’re already on top, so they don’t need to climb any higher. I was working from the ground up and needed every edge I could get.

The first thing I did when I decided to get to the top of the charts was to download the chart rules and read them. It didn’t take me long to find something interesting: in the UK, unlimited variants of a song can all be released and their sales combine to a single chart position.

Layman’s translation: If I release two, or five, or ten different remixes of my track, and someone buys all ten…as far as the charts people are concerned, it’s just like that person bought the same track ten times. It all combines to one place on the chart.

So on the day I released my song, my audience found 11 different remixes available to buy. Acoustic versions, instrumental, a cappella, the demo track, a piano track, a rap version, remixes from friends, spoken-word versions, and more.

It was a win for everyone. The people that wanted to support me by downloading multiple copies of the song could do so without just getting the same song each time. And the people who weren’t as bothered would still download some of the other tracks they personally liked (they were all free to view on YouTube).

Net result: the sales doubled.

If you’re in the UK, this trick still works and there still hasn’t been a major label to try it. If you live somewhere else, take a minute to read the chart rules in your country: there will be some loophole you can find, and when you do, you’ll marvel at how you found it first.

That’s my story. In the last twelve months, I’ve sold over 300,000 downloads of my music while still remaining unsigned and independent (which means I also get to keep all the money). Forbes described me as ‘the future of music’ in one of two back-to-back profiles on me during the summer. I got an exclusive, physical CD deal in HMV stores across the UK through a major label without signing to them–all because the distributor’s ten-year-old son had heard my music and watched my videos online. And it all started with a clear goal and a decision not to do things the way everyone else does.

Throughout the last year, I’ve finally figured out how to do what I’ve always wanted. I’m still making music, setting goals, and looking for loopholes. This is going to be an eventful year for me, and I hope it will be for you too.

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Photo credits: Christine Hayter and Beverly Nesbit