How do you promote yourself?

For a long time I have had a problem with safe pop music dominating the charts and award ceremonies.  When I was growing up in the late 70's and 80's I enjoyed an eclectic chart: yes there was still your novelty records and celebrity records, but for a few years the top 40 was a wild mix of punk, ska, rock n roll, new wave, reggae, electronica and pop... well it was all pop, but there at least was an array of genres.  Now it seems there is one genre and about 4 pop stars that dominate.  So very grey it is.

It was bewildering that in 2017, a certain singer would have an album of songs (each track eligible for chart entry due to streaming rules) and therefore be at multiple chart places in the top ten, all by himself.  Good for him but bad for music, I would argue.

Friends of mine would ask me why I have such a problem with a singer who is so successful, and by association with that success, talented and brilliant.  I try to explain that he is not a great writer, although undoubtedly a polished performer.  They say I am jealous.  Maybe.

I then came to a conclusion that my songs are not successful not because they are rubbish, but because they are performed by a nobody, and if a somebody sang my song it would suddenly be an amazing song... despite it being the same song.  Now obviously, you cannot get into the music business now without being already known, so trying to ask a publisher to pass your song to an established star is never going to happen.  Therefore I had an idea that I would pretend a certain singer was already singing my song and had secretly released a demo version of it on Youtube.  The video would state it is the singer and not me involved in the version and the video would show me in a mask of the singer's face, in different places, singing the track.  Now viewers would either think this is a stupid idea and clearly not their beloved artist, or have a laugh and listen long enough to enjoy the song, or actually believe their star was responsible.  It could even result in the singer's lawyers telling me to take down the video and stop being an idiot.  We shall see.  But I at least wanted to document what has happened here.

The song, by the way, is "You Make Me Happy" and the singer I have disguised myself as is Ed Sheeran.

If I end up in prison for this, please release a charity single for my release.

Here is a link to the video: https://youtu.be/bA2N_0uZYzM

You can buy the track on Bandcamp or from our home page here. 

Thank you.

#edsheeran #newsong #unreleased