The Dark Arts of preserving Welsh musical heritage in the digital age

07 May 2025 - Press release

 

Digital agency, Dark Arts, is harnessing the power of AI to preserve and enhance the digital visibility of culturally significant Welsh music catalogues that are at risk of being lost in today’s algorithm-driven era, where engagement and revenue are dependent on streaming platforms and social media.

Through the Creative Wales funded Optimise Music Wales project, Wales-based Dark Arts is deploying its purpose-built digital tools and industry best practises to increase the visibility of 20 of Wales’ most storied musicians, including Tom Jones, Catatonia, Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals, and Charlotte Church.

Artists with vast, culturally significant catalogues face an uphill battle to keep their works up to date with the current standards of the digital world. A song, video or image is frozen in time from the moment it is uploaded, while platforms, functionality, devices and the internet continually evolve at pace.

Thanks to R&D funding support provided by Media Cymru, Dark Arts have created their proprietary YouTube Audit and Digital Health Check tools to ensure culturally significant works remain visible and accessible online. 

Dark Arts’ Director, Joe Howden, said: “Like paintings in a gallery, digital IP must be periodically restored and re-presented to keep it fresh, accessible and eye-catching to modern audiences. Music that is uncared for starts to feel dated, causing more people to skip. This negatively impacts platform algorithms, causing once important and well-loved music to slowly fade from view.”

Dark Arts work with storied Welsh artists exemplifies an industry-wide problem that sees historic works at risk of being buried by the estimated one hundred thousand new songs uploaded to Spotify every day, and the 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube each minute.

Joe continued: “YouTube videos are a good example of the challenge we’re trying to address. A video uploaded in 2008 using standards and best practices of the time is now severely out-of-date. The quality of that video would be so low that it’s barely watchable to modern audiences expecting HD and 4K videos to watch on huge flatscreen TVs. Without intervention, many Welsh artists risk fading into obscurity.”

Dark Arts’ proprietary YouTube Audit tool is an industry-first system that combines AI and manual checks to automate processes that would otherwise require hours of manual work. Extracting data from an artist’s Official Artist Channel (OAC), the tool evaluates up to 150 videos against five key areas: resolution, thumbnail quality, title effectiveness, description strength, and subtitle presence.

The result? A clear, actionable roadmap for making classic videos up-to-date and competitive with the newest uploads to help the artist remain discoverable into the future.

Cardiff-born singer, songwriter and radio programmer, Cerys Matthews, is one of many Welsh artists enlisting Dark Arts support to ensure those songs reach new and returning audiences online. A founding member of the 90s breakout alt rock band, Catatonia, Cerys’ vocals on charts hits Road Rage and Mulder and Scully helped ensure that Welsh accents were heard on the airwaves during the Britpop era, when the internet was still in its dial-up infancy.  

Cerys said: “Artists must navigate the ever changing and complex seas of the digital domain. If we don’t, our music risks drifting out into the backwaters, and it’s easy for even the most beloved of songs to get lost.

“Keeping music and its associated platforms in good shape digitally isn't straightforward nor simple, and takes time and effort. Optimise Music Wales works with the artists to ensure Wales’ cultural legacy remains ship shape, visible, able to be found, heard and valued not just for today but for generations to come.”

Dark Arts’ forensic approach also includes a Digital Health Check tool to analyse Welsh artists’ digital footprints across more than 190 data points, covering web presence, streaming platforms, social media, and YouTube. This produces a prioritised to-do list of industry best practices to boost an artist’s scores.

Dark Arts specialises in strategic digital support for iconic artists including channel management, audience development, marketing, and crucially, digital optimisation.

Joe continued: “This isn’t just about visibility, it’s about the long-term preservation of culture, and making sure that music which is important to the national identity of Wales is upheld for future generations to discover. Through Optimise Music Wales we’re providing specialised support to artists on a national level for the first time. We’re trying to give Welsh music a competitive advantage that invites discovery to grow engagement, appreciation, and revenue.”

The challenge of optimising vast historic catalogues of work for the digital age isn’t unique to Welsh music. The necessity for digital optimisation in the global music industry is ever increasing and gathering pace. Artists worldwide need to follow proactive steps being taken in Wales.     

Minister for the Creative Industries, Jack Sargeant, added: “The purpose of Creative Wales’ Music Revenue Fund is to provide every corner of the Welsh music industry with the vital support needed to thrive, and Optimise Music Wales is an excellent example. This unique project directly addresses a specific need within the music industry that impacts Welsh artists across all genres and will seek to protect the integrity and lifelong impact of their music for years to come.”