Highest-charting UK single by an unsigned musician

Alex Day (UK) became the first unsigned musician to achieve a Top 10 placing on the Official UK Singles Chart when “Forever Yours” debuted at No.4 on 31 December 2011. The Essex-born singer/songwriter, 24, one of a growing number of video bloggers (or “vloggers”) using social networking sites to promote their music, has also charted as a solo artist with the 2012 singles “Lady Godiva” and “Stupid Stupid” and as a member of both Chartjackers (“I’ve Got Nothing”, 2009) and Sons of Admirals (“Here Comes My Baby”, 2010). As of 21 February 2013, Alex had attracted 107,250,624 video viewers and 654,845 subscribers to the “music and ramblings” on his YouTube channel, nerimon. nerimon featured 318 videos on 5 January 2013, including 11 music videos and video blogs entitled Lyrics Dissected, Travel Adventures and The Anti-News. Alex set up his YouTube channel on 4 August 2006. To put Alex’s viewer figures into perspective, 107 million is considerably more than the population of the UK (an estimated 63.05 million in July 2012) and the Philippines (103.77 million) and Alex has now got Mexico (114.97 million) - the 11th most populous country in the world - in his sight, according to figures provided by the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) World Factbook. "Lady Godiva" debuted at No.15 on 14 April 2012 and “Stupid Stupid” (see below) entered the chart at No.25 on 29 December 2012. His music has been described as "trock" (or timelord rock), a genre inspired by the TV series Doctor Who. On 16 December 2012, Alex celebrated the release of his new single, "Stupid Stupid", with a one-hour live event - Stupidfest - at Stratford Town Hall. During the hour, Alex attempted to set a new Guinness World Record by selling enough copies of “Stupid Stupid” to get it to No.1 on the iTunes chart. If successful, he would have been the first unsigned musician to reach No.1 on iTunes’ sales chart. During the hour, the single climbed as high as No.11 - and to No.10 shortly afterwards. Quote: “I love you, music industry. I hope you find a place for me one day.” - Alex Day, 13 October 2012, on his official website, alexdaymusic.com Note: further details available on existing database entry.