(Photo is from the Boston Calling Facebook page)
Lorde is the New Zealand-born singer and songwriter of the huge hits “Royals” and “Team”, and the outstanding Pure Heroine album . At 17 she had already won two Grammy awards, one of which was Song of the Year for "Royals", and was earning high praise from musicians like Dave Grohl, who said "she has an incredible future ahead of her as a writer, performer, and artist." And before all of that, she let 60,000 copies of
her music be downloaded for free.
Lorde won two Grammy awards by 17.
When she was starting out and recording her debut EP, The Love Club, she made the choice to make it freely available for download on Soundcloud. According to her manager, they chose it over iTunes
because they reasoned that it
would be hard to expect people to pay money to hear an unknown
artist. They had so much faith in the music that they made it
available for free and decided to worry about money later. Her
Soundcloud profile had no photo and the bio didn't mention her age;
even her avatar was only a drawing. Just on the strength
of the music and through word of mouth, 60,000 copies were
downloaded. Fast forward to the current day and her debut album, Pure Heroine, has reached no. 1 on
Billboard's digital album charts, no. 3 on the top 200 and sold over a million copies.
There are always the arguments as to whether or not the internet has ruined the music business, but artists can also make it work for them. Soundcloud is a website on which
anyone can upload their music for public consumption. You could go do
it this very moment. Lorde began on this level playing field and has risen to
where she is now. She and her manager used the internet to get her name out there, took the initial monetary loss, and stuck to a plan that has paid off. It's gratifying to see hard work and talent lead to
success, and she's proved that free online distribution of music can work to an artist's advantage. Her Soundcloud page is still up, too.
Bibliography
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/5922997/lordes-pure-heroine-hits-1-million-in-sales
https://www.facebook.com/Bostoncalling
https://www.facebook.com/Bostoncalling
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