From the stage to the living room: Brazilians go mad for live YouTube concerts

“The one I want, doesn’t want me / The one who wants me, I don’t want / No-one will suffer alone / Everyone is going to suffer.” On a Wednesday evening in April — with Brazil’s pubs, nightclubs, and karaoke bars closed due to Covid-19 social isolation measures — millions logged on to YouTube to watch Brazilian country singer Marília Mendonça belt out her hit for jilted lovers everywhere “Todo Mundo Vai Sofrer” (Everyone Is Going To Suffer), among dozens of other ballads, live from her own living room.

With an unprecedented peak audience of 3.31 million users, Marília Mendonça’s home concert is the most viewed YouTube live music broadcast in history. Since airing, the video has received a stunning 54 million total views. Another of her live performances, from the beginning of May, peaked at 2.21 million concurrent viewers and a total of 20 million watches since.

In comparison to the typical production values of Marília Mendonça’s live shows, her record-breaking YouTube broadcast is something completely different entirely. Filmed inside her living room, the superstar singer with a thick contralto voice spends the vast majority of the three-and-a-half-hour concert sat on an armchair, in flip-flops, yet somehow belting out her array of hits on romance and betrayal, never missing a note.

In fact, it is the simplicity and intimacy of the spectacle, along with the cathartic lyrics — mostly related to kicking out a cheating boyfriend, fiancé, or husband — are perhaps what drove the equivalent of...