While the odds are certainly stacked against musicians these days, it’s easier than ever to actually be a musician. You don’t even need musical instruments – just open up GarageBand and fiddle around to your heart’s content.
That’s actually part of the reason why it’s difficult to be a working musician these days – too much competition. Platforms like SoundCloud and Bandcamp give every eager muso a voice, so you’re constantly fighting to have yours heard.
If only some already prominent musician could share a little bit of their spotlight with you a la Taylor Swift and Vance Joy. Well, that’s precisely what happened to Iowa songwriter Christopher the Conquered.
As Christopher himself writes on Reddit, just over a week ago, Ryan Adams tweeted a photo of Christopher’s unreleased new album, gushing over how much he loves it. “This record is blowing my mind,” the alt-country icon wrote.
Adams also posted the photo on his official Instagram account, where he wrote, “This is a crazy and incredible record. Holy shit. Congrats [Christopher the Conquered].” That’s a pretty strong endorsement from an influential musician.
So, what was the result of getting such kind words from one Ryan Adams? Christopher has since taken to Reddit to break down the metrics of what he refers to as the “Ryan Adams bump” – the increase in interest from Adams’ social media activity.
“So, one week later, what’s happened?” Christopher writes. “Well, I’m not playing on the late night circuit or anything like that, but I did get a lot of interest in my music. Here’s how the last week has played out.”
“My website was averaging about 30 page views a day before the posts. The day of the post, I got 999 page views. It’s been dropping exponentially since then, about to be back to its ‘normal’ state. We’ll see if the overall average ups a little.”
“The single off the album on SoundCloud had pretty much tapered off after its release in April around 900 plays, get a couple a day since the mid-June. It had 950 plays right when Ryan posted, that jumped up to 1572 within one week,” he continues.
“I had zero email signups and zero internet sales the week before this, and honestly, my weekly averages had been close to zero for a while. So definitely a bump there. It’ll be interesting to see how revenues from digital music outlets are affected.”
Meanwhile, Christopher’s YouTube videos saw a 701 percent growth over the previous week, Facebook saw a 179 percent jump, and there was also a boost to his Instagram and Spotify followers, enough that he can now access his Spotify analytics.
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Interest from the music press also increased, with Noisey, Pure Volume, and Consequence of Sound penning articles about the young songwriter, the latter titled ‘Listen to two new songs from Ryan Adams-approved songwriter Christopher the Conquered‘.
“What I’m curious about is if these numbers could be extrapolated to predict the effect of being personally advocated for by a celebrity? Taylor Swift… has 100 times the number of Twitter followers that Ryan does.”
“Would it be reasonable to expect that if she posted about my music, I would see 100 times the above numbers in impact?” We’re willing to bet having Taylor Swift show you some love will definitely do big things for your profile. Just look at Vance Joy.
