Team Talk is Music Ally’s interview series, where our marketing experts speak to music industry teams about their latest work, best practices, and smart strategies. You can find the archive here.
Jungle’s ‘Back on 74’ – a track from their 2023 album ‘Volcano’ – recently hit the milestone of 100m streams on Spotify. It’s a mark of the momentum around the album and the British group, a decade after they came to prominence with their eponymous debut album.
This week saw Jungle win a Brit Award and perform the track at the ceremony to an audience of millions. While ‘Back on 74′ got a viral boost from TikTok, Verdigris Management owner Sam Denniston says that it’s the 10 years’ hard work leading up to it that made that moment so impactful.
“The lead choreographer on the film put a clip of the music video up on his TikTok page, and people just started suddenly replicating it,” he told Music Ally.
“It wasn’t so much that it was tons of people doing the dance. It was people who could dance to a very high level and have loads of followers were doing it.”
“That’s what started to drive the track. The quality of the UGC was always pretty high. It was really impressive to see all these different people around the world that were clearly very adept dancers. And then that started to snowball, and the streams on the track started driving up, and radio around the world started jumping on that.”
According to Denniston, it’s the first time this kind of “algorithm-based virality” has benefited Jungle, in a career arc that has been driven by critical acclaim, word of mouth, and famously-celebratory live shows.
“What’s so nice about it is that a lot of newer artists come along and have some kind of viral moment, but there isn’t really anything to go and discover out of the artist. And it puts a lot of pressure on the campaign,” he said.
“But with Jungle, as this moment came 10 years into their career, there’s a whole previous world of work for fans to dive into. It’s a brilliant song, which people really enjoyed, bringing them into their universe. The visual really drove it as well, it was being played everywhere. People were sharing it more and more; we had this amazing snowball moment.”
As ‘Back on 74’ took off, Jungle’s team diverted some marketing spend to convert people who discovered the group through TikTok into listeners to the wider catalogue, as well as encouraging them to check them out live.
The concerts have always been key. Denniston notes that Jungle haven’t taken any shortcuts, but have worked their way up through the various tiers of venues “giving the fans the best show that we can afford to give… sometimes in place of the band taking home a big pay-cheque!”
“The part that the fans will often engage with the most is the live shows, because it’s been about the community within the live shows, and the dance aspect of being there,” he said.
“I’ve gone to Jungle shows and witnessed people dancing with each other, as opposed to just looking directly at the band! So it feels like a big party whenever you go to a Jungle show.”
To co-opt the title of Jungle’s first hit, the band have been busy earnin’ their success, rather than chasing passing trends or platforms for short-term gain.
“We’ve always tried to put out the best quality records, the best quality visuals, and said ‘this is what we’re doing’. If anyone wants to come on board they can support that, but we’re not going to chase stuff,” he said.
“We’ve never chased virality; we’ve never chased chart success; we’ve never chased radio. I think if you make high-quality enough stuff, those things come to you naturally.”
That extends to Jungle and their team’s commitment to the visual aspects of their music, including long-form music videos.
“The danger with TikTok is that everyone now just chases this short-form content. But I think it’s very hard, when you have a very creative visual artist, for them to portray their world in a 30-second vertical clip. It’s virtually impossible,” said Denniston.
“I think it’s super-important that things like music videos are still made and appreciated and not just chucked out of the window because you [feel like you] should be focusing on trying to chase virality.”
“I think the minute that you try to chase virality, it doesn’t happen. It has to be a very organic thing. And it’s very socialistic in its form: it has to be the audience that does it and develops it.”
