UMG’s Capitol Records in the US has signed a worldwide deal with Calum Scott, a YouTube artist discovered by Conrad Withey’s Instrumental.
Scott has recently enjoyed a six-week run in the UK Top 40 with a cover of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own, despite no traditional radio support. The track has hit over 10 million streams and sold over 100k worldwide.
Scott was first introduced to the public as a contestant on Britain’s Got Talent last year. He reached the finals, and finished 6th out of 12 contestants.
Over the last six months, Scott and his manager Luke Williams at Vector Management have worked with Instrumental on a campaign based on analytics and insights to drive his launch through social media.
With a particular focus on YouTube, Dancing On My Own got off to a strong start thanks to a fan-driven introduction, which broadened out into a global hit through discovery and word of mouth, driven by streaming playlists and music bloggers.
The track has resonated on both sides of the Atlantic hitting the US and Canadian Top 5 on iTunes.
“Calum is the perfect example of a new breed of social music talent. We first spotted his potential through YouTube data. The organic audience engagement for the video of Dancing On My Own around the world was incredible. We weren’t even aware at that point of his Britain’s Got Talent appearance.”
conrad withey, instrumental
Discussing the deal with Capitol, Withey said: “Calum is the perfect example of a new breed of social music talent. We first spotted his potential through YouTube data.
“The organic audience engagement for the video of Dancing On My Own around the world was incredible. We weren’t even aware at that point of his Britain’s Got Talent appearance.”
Williams added: “It was amazing to have the belief from Instrumental. The team have been fantastic to work with, a great platform for any developing artist!”
Scott will now join Sam Smith on the Capitol roster, working with Virgin EMI in the UK.
Emma Banks, Head of A&R at Instrumental, said: “It’s wonderful to see artists like Calum going on to great things. That’s what Instrumental is all about. He’s an outstanding artist and we now look forward to discovering and developing more talent like him.”
Withey is an ex-major label exec having formerly been President of Warner Music Entertainment (WME). He launched Instrumental, which was then called PopShack, in January 2015. The label was founded to discover and develop artists emerging on social media.
In December, WMG U.K. invested in Instrumental as part of a deal that includes collaboration non-exclusively on a range of activities including A&R, artist development, YouTube channel management, release promotion, brand and content partnerships.
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