ALT-J's "An Awesome Wave" of traction

Alt-J, crashed on to the British Indie Rock scene in 2012 with their debut album, An Awesome Wave. After an astounding amount of success followed the drop of the melodic and peaceful tunes of Alt-J, they soon made an appearance on UK album charts in 2013, and won the prestigious title of album of the year at the Ivor Novello Award Ceremony. 

As one of my personal favorite band creation stories, Alt-J started as a group of college kids in Leeds. Lead vocalist and lead guitarist, Joe Newman, allegedly locked himself away in his dorm room and began writing songs, making music, and stopped attending his classes to focus on what would soon be known to the world as Alt-J. Two years later the mates signed a deal with Infectious Records and released their first studio album. 

Alt-J is sweet musical proof that musicians and bands alike, don't necessarily have to make "knowingly mainstream music" to break on to the mainstream stage. Further alluding to this notion is the band's feature of Miley Cyrus on their second studio album, This is All Yours, on the empowering track 'Hunger of the Pine'. 

Miley's subtle feature on this track was not released to the public or plastered on the front of their albums, I actually had no idea she was even featured until a little web-based browsing set on by curiosity. 

So how, might you ask, did Alt-J become so popular without leveraging celebrity connections or a large media presence? I believe their subtle marketing, new sound on the Indie scene, and fresh presence in the world of music engendered curiosity amongst indie fans and resulted in word of mouth (WOM) marketing that further lead to their fame. 

To learn more the enigma that is this British trio, check out Pias' How Alt-J ruled the World... Again