25/10/2008    

Its been close to ten months since I got featured on Youtube's front page, and sometimes when I have time on my hands, I get to thinking what I should make of it. So for my first blog post, I'm going to let you in on what I really think about the whole thing.

I can't say that the comments I've recieved online haven't affected me at all: the good comments really encourage me more than I expected. The bad comments I've recieved have more to do with sexual harrassment that to do with criticizing the music, and these comments are far easier to disregard and joke about. I'll probably compile a Top 10 list of favourite flaming comments on my next blog post—they're hilarious, I assure you.

It's a strange thing, really, when you're a musician and you're putting out your music online for every Tom, Dick or Harry to listen to, and comment on. On one hand you want to tune out critics and comments, but on the other, I strongly believe in music as a means to connect with people, to touch somebody. If you think about it, music really has no purpose in society except to do precisely that. Its not an economic device, its not a money-making career (unless you're a major record label in the 90's), and its definitely not a commodity today, so easily available online through illegal downloads.

Larkin Step, the first video I'd ever uploaded on YouTube, was a work in progress. It was a song I was intending to change, modify, and polish further. The title wasn't working for me, the song didn't have much of the storyline I had wanted to include, and the video just wasn't good enough. It was too pixelated, the singing was too pitchy for my liking, my guitar wasn't tuned, background curtains were ugly, the list goes on. So I thought, well, I'll put this work-in-progress up online, see if it gets any response. If just one person liked it, I might work on it more, and develop the song. I didn't tell my friends and family that I had this video online. Not a single person who knew me in real life as Ng Ling Kai knew that I was ling86. I was only comfortable dealing with anonymous responses. I didn't think I'd take it well at all if someone came up to me in school and said, "Hey, actually your song needs a hook pretty badly." (Not everyone's as "confident" as Liam Gallagher.)

After a few weeks, a few people had watched it, and I celebrated with myself when I got about 50 views, and 10 comments (I had a drink). I remember my surprise when I found that people actually liked the song. It was like finding out that you had the ability to do something that you've always wanted to do, but just didn't have the guts to try. It was tremendously empowering. So I planned to improve this little tune that I had.

Out of these few people, it got passed on to one YouTube editor and he sent me a message, saying he liked my song. He said, "Check back in 2 days, I have a surprise for you." Oh man, if only I had known.

Fast forward a few months, more than a million people have watched and heard the song. I was absolutely mortified! My first reaction was, "What?!", and the first question I asked myself was, "How am I going to make any changes to this song now?" I wondered, what was it about this song and this video that people were watching it so much? Was it the fact that I was a girl and I played guitar? Was it my funny accent? Was it my clothes, my face, or just the song?

It gave me a few sleepless nights, and I obsessively worried about it more than was healthy. And then it hit me. This is the way life happens; you never know when something extraordinary happens, how or why or when it does. You can never prepare enough for it. And that is the same way this whole thing started, at random, and by chance.

I would probably never know if it's because of the song itself, or because it was featured, that it got quite popular. But I guess that's the bit of luck that I was given, and I'd better use it or lose it. And I've been really lucky. Just because of what happened on YouTube, I've gotten a record deal, I've gotten funding and support to record an EP, and doing something with my music is reality now, not just a dream.

The views and the comments on YouTube have dwindled down quite a bit by now, probably because I haven't been doing the traditional promotion by going on television talkshows (coughmariedigbycough), or putting up more videos. I would eventually, but I'd rather focus on getting a good EP out, with all 6 songs on it being consistently good, and not be the "Larkin Step" girl for all eternity. (Recording is more tedious than I thought!)

Oh yes, about Larkin Step. I figured if 13,000 people bothered to leave comments and said that they liked it, maybe its not a "work-in-progress" afterall. =)

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posted on the 2008-10-25