How long has this being going on? The Morning Beat story

I’ve been asked a few times about how the Morning Beat started. I said I would write an article about it and for those of you who are still interested…here it is.

Shortly before the UK went into its first Lockdown in March 2020 we decided to move back into our home that was still going through a significant refurbishment. Most of our possessions including our TV were still in storage following our move 2 years earlier, and so I found myself spending time in the evening watching videos on my phone. I’ve always had music in my life and one evening I started looking for a cover song of one of my favourite tracks. Through this search on YouTube I started to discover some great cover artists, such as HSCC, and my search history started to grow. My threshold for saving a track was: If I was at a function and the band played this track would I tap my foot along to it or get on the dance floor; the benchmark has risen since that time, though more about that later.

It occurred to me that if I enjoyed listening to these tracks it was probable that some of my LinkedIn contacts would appreciate them too. So I posted a teaser track ‘Do I do by Stevie Wonder’, and said in that post that I would start posting a track every week day; this teaser track achieved 1842 views since I posted it, and remains in the Top 20 of the 230+ tracks.

I tagged some of my LinkedIn local contacts in Bath and Kent and a few others that I knew enjoyed music. People started to ask to be tagged and within a few months the list had growing to 3 pages. I also started capturing all the stats LinkedIn provided about the post, though I had to reduce both after about 40 posts due to the time it was taking to initially capture and then go back and check older posts each week.

One of the most rewarding by products of the Morning Beat posts have been the people who regularly, if not daily, have been supporting and critiquing the posts/tracks during the last year. Some of these contacts are now friends that I either did not know a year ago or had only met once or twice. So special mentions to: Craig Allan, Wendy Harris, Jeff Young, Michele Wolff, David Parry, Pete Dawson and Phil Coutanche, plus many others I have connected with during recent months through others liking and commenting on the posts. And to the people I know a little or a lot including: Lucy Iles, Paul Gosling (who shares almost every post), David Gilroy, Fiona Mason, Roger Keech, Pete Bresser, Gill Gibb, Fiona Mason, Neville Gaunt, Caroline Brooks, Andrew Middleton and Adrian Dante. My thanks to everyone (sorry if you didn't get a name check) who reads and listens to the post, regardless of whether you like or comment I do try and acknowledge or respond to every comment – the support has been awesome. OK time for some stats and some music.

At the time of publishing this:

I have posted 241 tracks, which have achieved

• 295,315 views
• 6,685 likes
• 10,133 comments
• 216 shares

Sales person, Executive director and Lawyer topped the list of ‘job roles’ when I was tracking these stats.

People who have viewed the posts are based in: the UK, USA, Canada, UAE, Japan, Morocco, France, South Africa, Denmark, India, Pakistan and many more that ‘disappear’ from the results as the post stats progress each day.

The Top 10 viewed tracks are:

10. Give me the night – George Benson

9. Staying alive – The Bee Gees

8. Here I go again – Whitesnake

7. Somebody else’s guy – Jocelyn Brown

6. Blame it on the boogie – The Jacksons

5. Lovely day – Bill Withers

4. Mashup (The Weeknd, Michael Jackson + Justin Timberlake)

3. Mr Blue Sky – ELO

2. It’s not unusual – Tom Jones

And number 1

9 to 5 – Dolly Parton

Things I’ve learnt about LinkedIn.

These posts have helped me make some great connections and friends, and reach lovers of music around the globe. The post statistics are interesting and a couple of quick checks each hour in the initial day can be quite revealing of the companies and countries linked to the viewers; just a shame LinkedIn doesn’t provide a more comprehensive historic data set, and do keep refreshing the page as sometimes the 'share's' simply don't appear. Posting doesn’t always go smoothly, after all LinkedIn is ‘ones and zeros’ with developers tweaking their algorithms, and because of this some great tracks have simply fallen foul of poor responses due to those I’ve tagged not being notified, videos not playing and views not reflecting the levels of engagement from dedicated ‘Beaters’.

Things I’ve learnt about YouTube.

There are many cover versions out there with various levels of skill and quality when benchmarked against my original criteria. Often a great performance doesn’t make the list because the sound quality is too poor to share, the recording is too short (less than a minute), or the vocalist does not do the track justice. I’ve also spent many minutes and hours scrolling down the result lists often seeing the same videos repeated. Then I randomly find a great cover of that track buried amongst the video playlist of an artist I explored further because of another track. I remain confused why the YouTube algorithm does not display it in the original search results. Removing the search term 'cover' can also help when seeking out lesser known tracks or artists. Finally, I think Wham’s Last Christmas has the most covers on YouTube – though this is unverified.

I mentioned earlier about the threshold was 'would I dance or tap my feet to the track', though this benchmark has been raised through the standards now expected from the regular ‘Beaters’ and a close replica of the original track are to be expected, resulting in some of my earlier finds getting cut.

A big warm Morning Beat thank you if you have engaged with any of the posts and/or watched any of the tracks. It has been quite something to read many of the comments and how music can be a trigger to great memories and create some 'interesting' and often amusing side conversations. Will they continue post Lockdown 3? Probably; well until I see the virtual tumbleweed when I post. Anyway I'll finish this article with the cover of the track I originally searched and started the Morning Beat idea - How long by Ace.