YouTube Trends Number of the Week: 2 Million

February 12, 2015



2 Million
: the approximate number of views Beck's YouTube channel received on February 9, the day after his controversial (to some) win for "Album of the Year" at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.

While impressive enough on its own, the number is particularly striking when compared to 60,000 - his channel's approximate view count for February 2, one week prior to the awards. That's an astounding ~3,290% increase in views, the 44-year-old music veteran receiving the largest lift post-Grammys of all the award winners across YouTube.

It's not entirely surprising that the most dramatic spike accompanied the most dramatic win of the night: Beck’s critically acclaimed sleeper hit “Morning Phase” beat out albums from of-the-moment superstars Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, Pharrell Williams and Sam Smith, despite the alt-rocker's relative "obscurity" and objections from the crowd. The win not only inspired viewers to explore songs from his winning album on YouTube - it resulted in a resurgence in interest in his vintage tracks as well: his classic “Loser” (the song 22 years old this year) saw its best-performing day ever on February 9, receiving ~600k views that day, ~420% more views than its second highest performing day more than three years ago (Oct 23, 2011).



-- Christine Huang

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