Within this essay I will be discussing the success of Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Someone You Loved’ and the significance of the track towards his overall success as an artist. I wanted to explore this topic because I am a fan of Lewis’ music and would like to learn more about what shaped his career to become what it has today. In order to find out more about Lewis’ success, I will be looking into some background about the artist and how his interest in music occurred, the statistics and story behind his song ‘Someone You Loved’, and the marketing techniques he uses throughout his promotion.
Scottish born singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi had a swift rise to fame. His independently released debut single ‘Bruises’ accumulated over 28 million streams from 2017, making him the fastest unsigned artist to reach over 25 million streams on Spotify worldwide. (Wikipedia, 2023) After finding a passion for music at a very young age, Capaldi set out to achieve the goal of performing music live, following in the footsteps of bands such as Green Day and Queen. When growing up with a rock music loving family, he believed that the only way he would be able to fulfil his dream of performing was to write his own songs. Therefore, he began learning guitar from the age of 9, and composing his own melodies and lyrics from age 11. Capaldi believes that his rise to stardom was because he wrote his own songs from personal experiences, to fit the style of his own voice, and that people gravitate towards his music because he embodies the story through his lyrics. (Sang, 2019)
‘Someone You Loved’ was initially released in November 2018, alongside Lewis’ ‘Breach’ EP, but was re-released with his debut album ‘Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent’ in May 2019. The song took himself and co-writer Samuel Romans around 6 months to write, as a last-minute addition to his EP and album. When describing the process behind writing the song, Lewis explains that “a lot of people say that the best songs fall into your lap…I disagree. I think my best songs have come from sitting at a piano bashing my head against a brick wall for hours to get a good melody.” (Moore, 2019) He wanted to take a step away from writing songs about past relationships and heartbreaks, and instead focus on writing songs that were more open to interpretation. He enjoyed listening to his fans’ stories of how they related to a particular song, and therefore didn’t want to write about himself and his experiences directly. (Genius, 2019)
When writing ‘Someone You Loved’, a new UK law was being brought into the NHS around organ donation. What once was an opt-in system was now becoming opt-out. This means that “all adults are now considered to have agreed to be an organ donor when they die unless they have a recorded decision not to donate.” (NHS Choices) An interpretation which Lewis stuck to quite often within both the writing and release of ‘Someone You Loved’ was around the death and bereavement of his grandmother, who passed away when he was young. Due to this, Lewis and his team used the story of loss when promoting the song, and when creating its music video, centred it around organ donation. The video features Lewis’ family member and actor Peter Capaldi and is focused on the process of organ donation, showing both the bereavement and hopeful side of it. (Capaldi, 2019) The video raises a lot of awareness towards organ donation, telling the story of a husband losing his wife and becoming lost in the recordings of her heartbeat. He unknowingly crosses paths with the young mother whom his late wife’s heart was donated to. Towards the end, the two meet and the husband is made aware of the impact organ donation can have. The video concludes with links for organ donation awareness websites. (Capaldi, 2019) Currently standing at over 180 million views, the video was a huge contribution to the song’s success. (Capaldi, 2019) At the time of its release, Capaldi wasn’t necessarily an established artist; his fanbase wasn’t huge and despite the popularity of ‘Bruises’, he didn’t have many other songs released. The video’s popularity certainly aided Capaldi when climbing the charts, with the song reaching the top spot just 4 weeks after its release. (Official Charts)
The hit single spent 7 weeks at number one in the UK official charts, with an additional 31 weeks spent within the top 10. The song currently still stands within the chart’s top 100 for the 181st week since its release. (Official Charts) The track was also crowned song of the year on the UK official charts for 2019 (Copsey, 2020), as well as receiving a Grammy nomination it was awarded with ‘Song of the Year’ in the 2020 Brit Awards. (Awards, 2020) On the official Billboard charts. The song peaked at number one for a total of 3 weeks and remained on the chart for a further 54 weeks. (Billboard) ‘Someone you Loved’ currently sits at number 6 on Spotify’s most streamed song list with over 2.7 billion streams, and an additional 1.3 million streams daily. (Masters, 2022)
Lewis takes a very unusual approach to marketing his music. In an interview with Steven Bartlett, he looks back the earlier days of using social media within his career. After the release of his first two EP’s, he took a small break from social media, and then gradually started to build his online portfolio by promoting his own gigs and posting content that he thought he and his friends would find amusing. (Bartlett, 2022) After accidentally establishing a ‘brand’ by being his authentic self, he now uses many social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to post out of the ordinary content to market his upcoming singles and albums. He recalls in an interview that his label “took a step back” and almost allowed him to take control over the way his music was advertised. (Sang, 2019) In 2019, the artist’s marketing budget was between £5,000-£10,000, a very small amount in comparison to many other campaigns. Therefore, his step-up on social media has made a huge impact on his career, with his team members acknowledging that “The Lewis Capaldi campaign has been a diverse and, frankly, unprecedented one…We’d like to make it known that without Lewis’s unwavering dedication to his online presence and personal brand, none of this would have been possible. Lewis is a digital phenomenon.” (Sandbox, 2019)
Capaldi doesn’t take the traditional route that most artists are advised to follow, and instead uses his own personality as a tactic to market not only his music, but himself as a musician. During the release of his debut album, Lewis was seen posing with a series of different sunglasses, singing along to his music. (Capaldi, 2019) This marketing technique is extremely popular amongst his fans, with many people commenting on his social media posts, saying how even though they aren’t huge fans of his music, they enjoy engaging with his social media posts due to his likeability. (Capaldi, 2022) As well as this, many other artists are beginning to take a similar approach. Therefore, this shows that the marketing technique works very well considering both his own popularity, and his influence on other artists.
By avoiding becoming the “polished popstar” he wished to steer away from, Capaldi has been successful in separating himself from his career, almost showing an alternate reality for his audience. By remaining authentic and showing some of the realities that come with being a successful musician, he has allowed himself to be more relatable than artists who may “fake it”. (Bartlett, 2022) During an interview with Steven Bartlett, Lewis explains how due to his anxiety, he hates photoshoots, interviews, making music videos and most other things that are typically used to promote or market songs. The only thing that pushes him through doing the things he isn’t exactly comfortable doing is that he is able to perform live at the end of it, which is something he really enjoys doing. (Bartlett, 2022) A marketing tactic used often by Lewis is humorous self-deprecation. He recalls in an interview with Zach Sang that the reason his debut album is titled ‘Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent’ is not only because he thought it was comical, but because he believed that by criticizing his work within its title, it prevents critics or newspapers from doing it themselves. (Sang, 2019)
As a result of Capaldi’s social media dedication, alongside his self-deprecation and self-humiliation marketing techniques, he has been productive in enabling his track ‘Someone You Loved’ to become the topmost streamed song in the UK, as well as one of the top 10 most streamed tracks globally. Lewis’ contribution to both the narrative of the song, and the campaign for its music video played a part in its global success and popularity. In a couple of short years, he has established himself and his brand. Alongside this, his non-traditional approach in marketing has resulted in him becoming a social media phenomenon, adding to the increase in his music’s popularity.
References
(Awards, 2020)
Awards, B.R.I.T. (2020) Brits 2020 winners, BRIT Awards. BRIT Awards. Available at: https://www.brits.co.uk/news/brits-2020-winners
(Bartlett, 2022)
Lewis Capaldi: The Untold Story Of Becoming A Global Superstar At 22 (2022) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktl0UdZtL1A
(Billboard)
Billboard Lewis Capaldi, Billboard. Available at: https://www.billboard.com/artist/lewis-capaldi/chart-history/hsi/
(Capaldi, 2019)
Someone You Loved (2019) YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xueqtD3weHA
(Capaldi, 2019)
Capaldi, L. (2019) Lewis Capaldi – Someone you loved, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCuhuePlP8o
(Capaldi, 2022)
(2022) TikTok. Available at: https://www.tiktok.com/@lewiscapaldi/video/7171233755548404998?_r=1&_t=8Z6ibEnIVIj
(Copsey, 2020)
Copsey, R. (2020) The official top 40 biggest songs of 2019, Official Charts. Available at: https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-official-top-40-biggest-songs-of-2019__28072/
(Genius, 2019)
Genius (2019) Lewis Capaldi “Someone you loved” official lyrics & meaning | verified, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEHDAFW7fSc
(Masters, 2022)
Masters, C. (2022) Most streamed songs on Spotify (daily update), ChartMasters. Available at: https://chartmasters.org/spotify-most-streamed-songs/
(Moore, 2019)
Moore, S. (2019) Lewis Capaldi explains meaning and inspiration behind his number one single ‘someone you loved’, NME. Available at: https://www.nme.com/news/music/lewis-capaldi-someone-you-loved-lyrics-song-meaning-2465520
(NHS choices)
NHS choices. NHS. Available at: https://www.organdonation.nhs.uk/helping-you-to-decide/about-organ-donation/faq/what-is-the-opt-out-system/
(Official Charts)
Charts, O.U.K. Someone you loved: Full official chart history: Official Charts Company, Official Charts. Available at: https://www.officialcharts.com/search/singles/someone-you-loved/
(Sandbox, 2019)
Sandbox (2019) “Sandbox : Music Marketing for the Digital Era.” Musically.
(Sang, 2019)
Sang, Z. (2019) Lewis Capaldi Talks Someone You Loved, His Best Friend Niall Horan & Instagram, YouTube. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbZ26NXfQWQ
(Wikipedia 2023)
Lewis Capaldi (2023) Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Capaldi#2014–2016:_Beginnings