The Daily Swarm

But the accident ends there. Bailey and bandmate Joshua Fanene, who lives in Oakland, were on the verge of completing their second full-length record when Bailey had the idea of using an instructional World of Warcraft video to promote the album. “I wanna make this video and kinda cash in on this fan base that I’ve developed,” he told Fanene at the time. Duly encouraged, he set out to create a new video that would document the outfitting of two new twinks. He recorded footage over about three months of gameplay, then edited it down and added music, including a pair of Negative pH songs. When it was complete, Fanene and Bailey refrained from releasing the video until their album was also ready for public consumption.

Both hit the net within a week of each other, and thanks to Bailey’s prominence as a gamer and Warcraft video producer, the response was immediate. Since October, “Greatest Twink Video Ever IV” has amassed 116,000 downloads at WarcraftMovies.com, making it the most downloaded twink video on the site. On YouTube, the video’s four parts have received a cumulative 93,000 views. And every single one of those views has been accompanied by exposure to Negative pH’s music.

The way Bailey did it is simple, but ingenious: dispersed among a soundtrack featuring James Brown, Jamiroquai, Nine Inch Nails, the Chemical Brothers, and Frank Sinatra are two new Negative pH tracks. The songs by the major artists are familiar enough to draw viewers into the audio, while Bailey’s music video-style editing pairs on-screen moods and transitions with parallel moments in the music. All this fosters an ideal launching platform for Negative pH’s songs, where viewers become voluntarily invested in music they’ve never heard before.