Reaping the Benefits

                      The ElectronicGems logo

ElectronicGems now has 141 uploads and (usually) features a new song three days a week. Over the course of my curation of the channel, I’ve found that Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday are the best days for traffic. Each video features an image of my logo, which was generously designed for free by this graphic designer, atop a selected piece of sci-fi art. The YouTube community has become crowded with music promotion channels and most of them opt to use clickbait images of scantily-clad women for their videos, so I am able to call the sci-fi aesthetic one that is unique to my channel and differ myself from that popular trend. I try to stay true to the original concept of ElectronicGems, in that I only upload songs that are minimally promoted on YouTube in order to really emphasize the sentiment that the song is a gem.

Creating this YouTube channel has turned out to be a great decision. It gives me something to focus on and look forward to on a weekly basis. I enjoy managing an entity and having full control over it. I’ve been able to establish connections with artists that I admire, and I have built a small, but loyal following.

It is also quite rewarding to receive feedback from listeners. Recently, I got a comment from a subscriber saying: “Officially watched all 129 of your uploads, you get me through my homework every night.” Comments like these are a reminder of the main reason I began the channel in the first place: to introduce people to some great music they might not have heard otherwise. I have also been thanked by numerous artists I’ve featured on the channel for promoting their music. I have truly become immersed in the realm of underground electronic music because of this endeavour.

In the future, I strive to make ElectronicGems into more than a YouTube channel and perhaps expand it into a blog. I’ve also created a SoundCloud and a Facebook account for my music promotion brand, and I've had a Twitter account for some time now. I have no plans of discontinuing the promotion of music that I love, and I am quite excited to see where it takes me in the future.

Since the launch of ElectronicGems, I have accumulated 750 subscribers and nearly 185,000 total views, but at the end of the day it’s not about numbers; it’s about the music.

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DANIEL CUMMER

Daniel is a self-proclaimed writer hailing from Mississauga, Ontario with an unhealthy addiction to the Internet. He is a music enthusiast and a lover of classic sci-fi art and battle rap. He also mixes music and curates a promotional music channel on YouTube called "Electronic Gems".

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The Inception

Growing out of the heavier and less shallow side of electronic music, I transitioned into the more “chill” side, as young people today like to call it. I stumbled across various channels supporting this side of the genre such as MrSuicideSheep, Majestic Casual, 17tumba, and various others (I have been all about YouTube for years now. I haven’t become invested in a TV show in quite awhile, and am pretty much a walking product of the Internet). I remember when I initially discovered these channels that would upload songs multiple times a week, I was enlightened as well as flustered, because there was so much I had to catch up on. Entire genres that I’d never heard of, like deep house, downtempo, and future funk had all become appealing to me, and there was so much of it to be heard.

After soaking in the many new tunes from these promotional music channels, I began to peruse sites like SoundCloud and Hype Machine as new sources of music. I started to find tracks on my own time which I did not see being posted on YouTube. One in particular that I can remember uploading, before the idea of having a music-related channel came to me, was a drum ‘n’ bass track called “Mother’s Theme” by Intelligent Manners. I happened to have a channel already made called HungOverGargoyle (I was such a creative young lad), where I posted clips from the video game Call of Duty. I interrupted the consistent flow of cyber war videos to post this new track that I was digging, because I was unable to find it on YouTube and felt it was too good not to be heard.

The upload majorly responsible for the creation of ElectronicGems.

One night, over a game of Call of Duty (surprise, surprise), one of my friends told me he listened to the song, and then told me “you should start a channel like MrSuicideSheep.” I didn’t think much of it at first because I was a lazy and apathetic teenager, but I began to consider it, and eventually made the executive decision to slow up on the Call of Duty videos and start using my channel for promoting music. Over time, I created a name, aesthetic, and logo, and ElectronicGems had become a reality.

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Daniel Cummer

Daniel is a self-proclaimed writer hailing from Mississauga, Ontario with an unhealthy addiction to the Internet. He is a music enthusiast and a lover of classic sci-fi art and battle rap. He also mixes music and curates a promotional music channel on YouTube called "Electronic Gems".

Facebook | Sites I Follow: Resident Advisor | XLR8R | Mr Nonsense

The Dubstep Phase

The dubstep phase is a concept that does not exist in others' minds because some never come out of it, and others are unaware it is a genre that will satisfy for a limited time only. When I use the term “dubstep,” I am not referring to the sound of minimal synths, wobbling bass lines, and unconventional drum patterns that was popularized in London, England in the 1990s by artists like Kode9, Digital Mystikz, and Skream. No, I am talking about the loud, heavy electronic dance music that has somehow adopted the same name, even though it is a very different sound. The title of “brostep” has been ascribed to this new genre, but not many actually use it other than people talking about it ironically.  

A photo I took in high school at a Zeds Dead (dubstep) show which took place in a church.

Dubstep has become a worldwide phenomenon that is likely to be heard at your local EDM festival, though it has been recently overshadowed by big-room house and trap music. Its main appeal is the fact that it’s noisy and hard-hitting, which is ideal music for a teenager going through a phase.

The features of dubstep that are appealing to the public are the same ones that repel me from it. It is intense and in your face, which I required at one time when listening to music, but no longer do. It’s also formulaic, typically featuring an ambient introduction with a synth or piano followed by a bass drop, then an ambient interlude followed by another bass drop. If there’s one thing you can expect when listening to a dubstep track, it’s that it will have a loud, epic “drop,” causing vigorous headbanging, similar to the effects of heavy-metal music. Indeed, it is a reliable genre, but lacks variation because of that. This is why fans of dubstep love it, and why I now dislike it.

I am discussing this concept that I’ve made up because I’ve experienced it, and would be lying if I said it didn’t play an important part in my progression of becoming a music promoter. Dubstep was both my introduction to electronic music and promotional music channels on YouTube. If not for dubstep, I’m not sure that the idea would ever cross my mind to start up a YouTube channel, let alone have it actually happen.

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Daniel Cummer

Daniel is a self-proclaimed writer hailing from Mississauga, Ontario with an unhealthy addiction to the Internet. He is a music enthusiast and a lover of classic sci-fi art and battle rap. He also mixes music and curates a promotional music channel on YouTube called "Electronic Gems".

Facebook | Sites I Follow: Resident Advisor | XLR8R | Mr Nonsense

The Music of My Childhood

It is an interesting thing to look at the progression of people's taste in music. For some it remains fairly similar over time, and for others it changes drastically.

A picture of me and hip hop artist Cormega

When I first started to obsess over music, I remember there were two prominent artists that I could not get enough of. The first was Eminem (which I somehow convinced my mother to let me listen to even though every one of his albums had the big and bold "Parental Advisory: Explicit Content” sticker on it) and the second was pop punk band Sum 41. Both were pretty inappropriate for an 11 year-old to be listening to, especially given the fact that I was forbidden from playing Habbo Hotel at the time. While the former artist apparently stuck with me, as I still listen to a wide range of hip hop music today, the latter did not, as I very rarely listen to music in a band format anymore. No, my passion for music nowadays is based in the realm of electronic music, and it is very much a full-fledged passion.

As I think about it, I believe my taste in music during my childhood was developed in such a way because of the lack of access to the Internet back then. We tended to listen to what was most accessible to us in the MTV and MuchMusic era and didn’t really have the mind to venture outside of that. Electronic music was not very well represented in mainstream media those days, just like it isn’t now. Of course there were exceptions, such as Dirty Vegas’ “Days Go By” and Daft Punk’s “One More Time” (who could forget that groovy anthem promoting the sentiment of never wanting to stop dancing, accompanied by that charming animated music video), but there was also a very ugly side to it as well. Everyone can vividly remember that song “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” because of just how silly the video and song itself were. Not to mention that Hamsterdance song with those obnoxious pitched up vocals. Those tracks were the basis of my impression of electronic music back then, and it was not a very good impression.  

But with the extensive amount of content on the Internet, there has become a world of spectacular music unknown to many, provided by young producers from the comfort of their own bedrooms. Wanting to pay homage to these producers is one of the reasons why I began my music promotion brand: Electronic Gems.

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Daniel Cummer

Daniel is a self-proclaimed writer hailing from Mississauga, Ontario with an unhealthy addiction to the Internet. He is a music enthusiast and a lover of classic sci-fi art and battle rap. He also mixes music and curates a promotional music channel on YouTube called "Electronic Gems".

Facebook | Sites I Follow: Resident Advisor | XLR8R | Mr Nonsense