Do you remember Youtube 10 years ago, when Alan Walker played on every gaming channel? If you’re wondering where he is now, on Halloween, there’s an Alan Walker concert happening in Vancouver at the Pacific Coliseum.
If you’ve been on Youtube since 2014 to 2017, you might be familiar with his songs like “The Spectre” and “Faded” being used pretty much everywhere. I remember owning a Youtube account when I was 11 and finding tons of Asphalt 8 mobile gameplays using Alan Walker in intros and outros, or as a looping music bed.
Even as a kid who was new to the platform, I could tell how generic the video production was for many channels when they used the same ten copyright free songs in their videos. Most videos you find from gaming channels from 10 years ago use a moving neon visualizer with bright, shifting hues along with their name in the center while Alan Walker’s music fades in.
His first song was “Fade” which was released in 2014 when he was just in high school. He started out with a hit, very quickly gaining millions of views, but his listeners felt something was missing from the song. This led him to reach out to a singer called Iselin Solheim, and they filled the song with the vocals that felt missing from the original track, which was then released as “Faded”.
djayzpro / Alan Walker
Alan Walker’s dream label is not something like Sony or Warner, but instead NoCopyrightSounds, which lets you use music for free without a copyright claim. That’s why you find so many Youtubers like gaming channels that use songs like “The Spectre” in their older videos. His growth in popularity was largely thanks to his desire to put his songs out there for free.
As for his identity and branding, he had a look of a hacker or an anonymous figure behind the scenes. Think of a black mask, hoodie, and a backpack. His main focus wasn’t trying to hide his identity, but rather shift the focus towards the music and not himself.
His songs give out a melancholy dystopian future vibe with a focus on emotional melodies and synths, rather than drums and bass. At his concerts, the lighting truly elevates the experience of listening to EDM live. With a high energy synchronization of strobes and panning beams; EDM is one of the best genres for laser effects, especially at an Alan Walker show.