The Wanted

The band The Wanted were formed in 2009.  They are  classed as a ‘boy band’ and have so far released two top 5 albums and 6 singles which reach the top 20 in the UK charts. They have also created a strong following in Europe, Australia, Brazil and now America.

The Wanted, were put together by Universal in 2009 after completing a 9 month’s of auditions. They were looking to create a new boy band, as the success of the 4 piece boy band JLS had signalled a resurgence in the popularity of boy bands, and at time there was no competition for JLS. The band consists of Max George, Tom Parker, Nathan Sykes, Jay McGuiness and Siva Kaneswaren. Unlike boy band JLS who entered the music industry using reality TV show The X Factor, where instant recognition ensues for most contestants that reach the final 4, The Wanted had to generate their own publicity and build their own fan base. The Wanted instead toured the UK on a school and club tour. The band often comment on ‘the early days’ of working hard performing during the day at schools and going to perform at clubs and pubs at night.. This gained the band interest and fans from scratch rather than picking up on a TV audience. It got the bands music and name out, and the bands interaction with fans helped them to gain a really strong following. During the school and club tour the band would often send tweets to fans, answering questions and updating them on what they were doing and they also used a flip camera to record their day to day life and to send video messages schools they wanted to thank. These videos were uploaded on to the bands YouTube channel ‘thewantedmusic’. The band really enjoyed making these videos and realised they were helping to create fan interaction as the videos were being really well received. So band member Tom Parker came up with the idea of ‘Wanted Wednesday’. On Wanted Wednesday (every Wednesday) a mailer written by band member Jay McGuiness is sent to anyone signed up to the bands website, fans are encouraged to tweet ‘#WantedWednesday’ and try to get it trending and a video is uploaded to YouTube of the bands weekly activities, this could be promotion work, touring or behind the scenes of filming a music video etc. The videos are filmed by the band and/or their manager Jayne or tour manager Martin and give the fans a way to follow what the band are doing. They often also have competitions run within them for fans to win prizes which also encourages fans to watch the videos and tweet about the band. By getting fans to tweet about the band and trend their name the band were gaining free publicity.

    The band’s first single ‘All Time Low’ shot them into the charts where the band debuted at number one. The band did single promotion through a radio tour which saw them travel up and down the country and TV interviews. ‘All Time Low’ was so successful that the band was even asked to perform at the Capital Summer Time Ball held at Wembley arena. This was a huge leap for the band, from performing to about 100 people in a club to 75,000 people. This gave the band exposure and publicity by performing at such a well known mainstream music event. The band have since gone from strength to strength. They solidified their place in the music industry releasing their second single ‘Heart Vacancy’ which peaked at number 2 in the UK Singles Chart and releasing their self titled album which peaked at number 4 in the official UK album chart. When releasing the album, the band played an exclusive Halloween gig. People wanting to attend had to get a wrist band from high street store HMV. The band were also asked to perform at T4’s Stars of 2010 show, which celebrated the best new comers to music, TV and film of the year. Perhaps the biggest achievement according to band member Jay, was being nominated for Best British Single for ‘All Time Low’ at the BRIT awards.  In March 2011 the band were even asked to release the Comic Relief charity single. They released 'Gold Forever’ the first song from their second album, which debuted at number 3 in the UK charts and raised a lot of money for the charity.  The band reached number 1 in the charts for a second time in the summer of 2011 with their single ‘Glad You Came’ which managed to hold on to the number 1 spot for 2 weeks in the UK and for 4 weeks in Ireland. This single has also had huge international success entering the charts in countries all over the world and has just earned the band their second nomination for Best British Single at the BRITS. In February of 2012 the band will be embarking on their first UK arena tour. The band have been drumming up excitement for the tour by tweeting fans, asking if they are excited, who has their tickets and uploading videos and pictures of the band rehearsing.

The band have become hugely successful across Europe, Asia, Australia and Brazil after supporting teen pop star Justin Beiber on his South American tour which gained them a lot of fans and publicity as Justin Bieber is such a global star who would attract a similar fanbase to that the band are aimed at. The band are currently attempting to crack the US market. Even though the band hadn’t done any promotion in the US when they first went over to New York, they  played a sell out show at the Gramercy Theatre. This shows the power of the internet as the band had been able to sell records and tickets and create interest without any formal TV or radio promotion. This year the band were invited to perform on the popular US chat show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and have just finished their first US Tour, selling out two of their shows in a matter of minutes and managing to get their single ‘Glad You Came’ on to many radio playlists all over the country. Their radio and club tour stratergy that helped them to make it in the UK, has also paid off in the US as their single ‘Glad You Came’ currently sits at number 12 in the iTunes chart and is even going to be covered by the cast of Glee in on of the episodes of the popular TV show. Even though the band have not been in the UK, they have still been able to keep in touch with the fans from the UK and all over the world using Twitter, mailers and their YouTube videos which shows the bands antics from their tour which were edited by band member Jay, as well as lining up a Channel 4 Fly-on-the-wall Documentary.

The success of The Wanted, shows the power of the internet in promoting artists and music as well as showing technologies ability to spread music and start careers for artists in countries that otherwise would not hear their music. Twenty years ago it would have been impossible for an artist to become successful and have an army of fans in a country where they had done no promotion, however this s The technology The Wanted use to keep in touch with their fans also embodies increased fan interactivity in the modern age and the ability for artists to connect with people on another level, which would otherwise be impossible.