Tag: PVRIS

News

The 20 Most Reblogged Bands on Tumblr in 2015 (And What It Says About The Platform)

Post author By James Shotwell
Post date December 8, 2015

The end of the year is near, and like any site with an immense amount of user-driven data at its disposal Tumblr has begun to share the best content created and shared on their platform during the current year. The company has even gone so far as to create a site that exists solely to share this content, and recently that blog ran an article highlighting the top 20 most reblogged artists of 2015.

Topping the reblog list for the second year in a row is 5 Seconds Of Summer. The reigning champs released their sophomore album, Sounds Good Feels Good, in October after having spent the summer on a massive (and largely sold out) summer tour. With previous tour mates One Direction rumored to be going on hiatus in the new year, there seems to be no one in music who has the sound or look needed to dethrone 5SOS in the immediate future.

In second place for the second year in a row is the aforementioned One Direction. The group’s most recent album, Made In The AM, dropped in November to critical and fan acclaim, but it will be interesting to see if the group remains on this chart another year. The continued talk of hiatus will certainly lend itself to a wealth of content being created and shared around the group in the early months of the new year, but if a break is indeed happening a drop in the frequency of 1D reblogs by mid-year would not be a surprise.

Rounding out the top 5 is Twenty One Pilots, Fall Out Boy, and Panic! At The Disco. All three bands, like One Directions and 5SOS, have a target audiences that practically mirrors that of Tumblr. Of the 55 million Internet users globally who say they contribute to or use the site on a monthly basis, nearly half, or 46% of these users were between the ages of 16 and 24 (always a difficult-to-reach demographic).

The first female group or artist on the list is Fifth Harmony. The powerful pop group, who formed during the second season of The X-Factor USA, are one of just three acts on the list to feature women. The group’s debut album, Reflection, was well received when it hit stores earlier this year. A follow-up is expected in 2016, and if it’s half as good as their debut I see no reason that Fifth Harmony would leave this list anytime soon.

A wide variety of alternative acts take up the majority of the remaining spots, along with a few defunct rock greats (Nirvana, My Chemical Romance, The Beatles). Some of the the artists included in that grouping are All Time Low, Pierce The Veil, The 1975, and Paramore, all of whom are not strangers to being amongst the most reblogged names in music. Like the artists at the top of this list, the target demo for all these acts are teens and young adults. Some have released albums in the last year, but others have not (looking at you, PTV). It seems as long as the groups continue to produce promotional materials and tour there is no end to their fans’ devotion.

The two surprises on this list, and I mean that in the best possible way, are the chart position of Twenty One Pilots (3), and the presence of PRVIS (20). Both group are still relatively new to the international scene, with each having made their biggest splash at radio and beyond in the last two years. Their inclusion on this chart speaks to the role social media has played in not only establishing their brands, but developing and helping to sustain them as well. As long as both groups stay the course in the new year I have no doubts we’ll be talking about them again next December.

The full list of top reblogged bands reads as follows:

James Shotwell is the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also a professional entertainment critic, covering both film and music, as well as the co-founder of Antique Records. Feel free to tell him you love or hate the article above by connecting with him on Twitter. Bonus points if you introduce yourself by sharing your favorite Simpsons character.

Tags 5 Seconds Of Summer, 5SOS, Blog, music, Music Business, music industry, Pierce The Veil, PVRIS, Top 20, Tumblr, Year In Review

News

Monday Motivation: PVRIS

Post author By James Shotwell
Post date June 22, 2015

If you’re anything like me, you probably started the day by recognizing the start of a new work week had indeed arrived and then immediately began shaking your fists at the sky in anger. Monday is rarely anyone’s favorite day, and from what I have seen firsthand it feels safe to say it’s the one day of the week some people outright hate. I guess to them the arrival of the work week symbolizes the end of their quote/unquote freedom, and as a result they head into the office/factory/restaurant/store with a negative outlook already on their mind. This leads to bad attitudes, which only makes the experience of being at work worse, and for some reason it also seems to make time slow to a crawl. We’re not about that life, and we hope this post can do the same you that the song contained within it did for us.

A lot of people believed 2014 would be the year of PVRIS, and in many ways it was: The band charted around the world with their breakout single “St. Patrick,” they single-handedly ushered in a new era of pop-friendliness for their label Rise Records, as well as a new audience to the world of female-fronted alternative rock, and they were one of the biggest stars of the long-running traveling music festival known Vans Warped Tour. There are numerous accomplishments and accolades that could be added to that list, including the release of the band’s incredible debut album, but suffice to say last year was a good year to be a fan of the biggest band to ever call Lowell, Massachusetts home.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say 2014 was merely the teaser for everything that has happened and will continue to happen to PVRIS over the course of 2015. Having now solidified themselves as a alternative force to be reckoned with in the worlds of both pop and rock, the band recently completely a stateside headlining tour that was praised from coast to coast. They’ve also appeared at some of the biggest festivals around the world, and can currently be found once again appearing on Vans Warped Tour, albeit to immensely larger crowds. The band even released a new song, a cover of Sia’s hit “Chandelier,” this past weekend. You can stream that track above.

There is never a time when a music writers likes to admit they missed the initial bandwagon on a popular band, but that is certainly what happened with me and the rise of Pvris. Their name was one I heard in conversation with industry friends both online and in real life for the better part of a year before I actually took the time to check them out. It wasn’t until I heard “St. Patrick” pouring through the open window of a car driven by college kids with seemingly no grasp for the rules of the road on Storrow drive in Boston that I actually made it a point to see what all the fuss was about. The hook stuck with me, despite having heard it through the stereo in a car I was in while driving over 40MPH through the city, and isn’t the sign of having discovered something truly special in the overwhelming world of up and coming music then I don’t know what is.

If you haven’t taken the time to stream White Noise, the full-length debut from PVRIS, then I highlight suggest you do so in the coming days. This band could be where Paramore is today in just a few years, if not bigger, and right now they are doing everything a band trying to navigate the often treacherous waters of the modern music should be in order to ensure a long a successful career. They’ve made a name for themselves on being unique, and that is what we should all aim to do in our own individual careers. Be yourself, always.

Tags Chandelier, Chandelier Cover, Fearless Records, monday motivation, music, Music Monday, MusicMonday, PVRIS, Recommendation, Review, Sia

News

What We Learned From Watching Pvris At Webster Hall On Periscope

Post author By James Shotwell
Post date June 2, 2015

With the seemingly unstoppable growth being experience by the market for apps allowing you to broadcast your life in real time it should come as no surprise that artists have found yet another way to connect with their fans in the digital space. Last night, in front of hundreds of fans, Rise Records group Pvris became one of the first internationally-recognized bands in the world to share their thrilling live show with fans around the globe in real time, for free, using nothing more than a cell phone and an app they downloaded for free from iTunes.

We told you back in late March about Periscope and the numerous ways musicians could leverage the real-time mobile broadcast platform to benefit their careers. At the time, we never imagined a mainstream artist would consider sharing a straightforward live performance given the many issues such promotions would face in regards to assuring a quality broadcast (sound, lighting, etc.). but last night Pvris rolled the dice and more or less came out victors as a result. The image wasn’t great, and to be honest the audio did leave a bit to be desired, but the broadcast allowed the band’s many fans around the world a new way to connect with the group, as well as one another, that was equally unique and fleeting (Periscope deletes all broadcasts twenty-four hours after a recording is first made).

If you missed the broadcast entirely, there is no way to share it with you now. You cannot embed broadcasts, and even if you could the app captures all broadcasts as vertical video. Viewers watching Pvris had to hold their phones sideways to view the concert proper, but if they did that it became a bit more difficult to keep track of the fan-generated conversation happening simultaneously on the same screen. Here’s an example:

The entire broadcast lasted only through the opening song of the band’s set, and even that proved to be a bit difficult. Connection was never lost, but at one point whoever was responsible for holding or watching the phone capturing the performance lost control of the device and the image became incredibly hard to watch:

This may sound like a lot of complaining, but I actually think this event was a great success. Pvris’ broadcast was far from perfect, but it did manage to teach us a few things:

1. Periscope would be wise to implement a horizontal/widescreen broadcast setting.

Vertical video syndrome used to be a pretty hilarious meme, but the age of cell phone broadcasting has made its use more prevalent than ever before. Due to the way Periscope has been developed, the chat functions do not rotate with the camera during a broadcast so, as you see above, users are forced to choose between engaging with others and strictly viewing the performance. There is also no way to shut off the chat (at least not one that is clearly marked on screen), so it’s possible to foresee instances where the interaction between audience members takes away from the action on screen.

2. Despite a lack of HD video and studio quality sound, fans stuck around to view the entire performance.

The initial Pvris broadcast brought in 558 viewers, with an additional 276 people watching the video replay of the performance in the hours since the live feed came to an end. I watched the video twice myself, and though I won’t claim to have been able to read every comment that flew by on screen, I did not see a single person complain about the video or audio quality of the event. Most fans were just excited to have the opportunity to see the band live at all, with numerous people commenting “This may be the closest I ever get to seeing you,” or “This makes up for me not being allowed to see you on Warped Tour this summer.”

3. Artists hoping to duplicate this idea in the future would be wise to invest in a tripod.

I mentioned this briefly above, but it became increasingly clear as the Pvris broadcast continued that there was someone holding the phone capturing the performance. While they did their job perfectly fine, numerous moments of shakiness and one instance where the view of the band was lost entirely due to circumstances that remain unclear may have been avoided if the phone/iPad/etc running Periscope had been placed in a tripod or similar device that enabled stabilized recording.

4. Fan-filmed broadcasts of concerts large and small will be on the rise in no time at all, so artists might as well take the lead.

Unless Periscope develops a way for quote/unquote ‘celebrities’ to broadcast in full HD, the level of quality recording attainable for anyone using Periscope is basically the same. The Pvris broadcast, while far from perfect, proved people will engage with the platform in spite of not having the best audio or video to enjoy. The access the platform gives those without the means to attend events is second to none, and it will only be a matter of time before every other teen at every date of Warped Tour is capturing full sets from bands for people online to enjoy from the comfort of their own home. Maybe they’ll be broadcasting for a friend who wasn’t allowed to attend, or maybe they’ll be broadcasting in hopes of getting some digital recognition for being the ‘first’ to share the group’s latest live show. Whatever the case, Periscope’s foray into the world of live music has only just begun.

With that in mind, I think it’s important for artists to follow the lead of Pvris and begin using Periscope to share their own live performances and behind-the-scenes antics. Let fans know now, while the app is still young, that your official account is the best source for broadcasts featuring you and your music. You could also encourage fans to share videos of your performance using a specific hashtag that helps further your brand.

5. It never hurts to try something new

Pvris on Periscope could have been a complete disaster. The sound at Webster Hall could have overwhelmed the phone’s micropohone, or the lighting at the venue could have made the video too much of a colorful mess to enjoy, but instead the band’s first real-time performance broadcast was proof the emerging social media platform could be used to connect with fans in a new way. It’s not perfect yet, but it will almost certainly be approved upon, and for the time being it’s more than good enough to capture and retain the attention of the band’s global fanbase, many of whom are likely in high school or college.

6. Pvris are a really, really great band.

Part of the reason nobody seemed to care that the audio from Webster Hall wasn’t crystal clear is because Pvris still sounded great. The band has been praised by critics and fans alike for their tight live show, and even a low quality real-time broadcast of their set could not diminish the talent they have developed through years of hard work and constant dedication. The less than ideal setup may have exposed another band’s lack of cohesion on stage, but for Pvris it was only further proof this still young band has an incredibly bright future on the horizon.

Tags diy, editorial, Live Broadcast, music, Music Business, Music Marketing, Periscope, PVRIS, Pvriscope, Real-Time, Review