Saturday, January 7, 2012

YouTube Should Just Start a Record Label

You may have heard of this kid, his name is Justin Beiber. He got his break because he posted videos up on YouTube and someone saw them and decided to give him the big push and now, well, they're all millionaires. The funny thing is, my niece has been trolling YouTube for years to see people singing her favorite songs and I absolutely remember seeing Bieber before there were movies, earrings and perfumes with his name all over them. I absolutely get the "Never Say Never" thing because looking back even 3-5 years ago, who would've thought that someone could've gotten their big break just by posting videos online?

Every day, I get in the car, turn on the radio and hear shit. There's just no way around it. There's shitty, shitty shitastic music on the radio. It's actually kind of amazing the core level of raw talent you have to lack to get on the radio and into mainstream music when you just take a few minutes to visit Youtube. Here, take a minute...open a new tab, go to the site I'm sure you're more than familiar with and enter the name of your favorite song and at the end put "cover". You'll get so many videos returned and I can almost guarantee you'll find someone who's far more talented than Rihanna, Drake, or Ke$ha doing their version of the song. No autotunes...likely just the person, a guitar/keyboard, or sometimes an instrumental track. And once you start, you won't stop suggestions of more and more people doing that same song pop up and they're usually just as amazing and sometimes you come across the more beautifully talented people. It's actually really inspiring. Sure, there'll be some duds in there but man, the amount of talent far exceeds it.

In preparing for this post, I knew exactly a few people I'd post as examples of some of amazing voices I've come across but I wanted a few more for some variety of genre and people and what happened? I spent the last hour just going from video to video. It's hard narrowing down and I feel like I want to go get more because I'm sure there's even better than this out there but if I don't just post these videos, I'll never stop.

So, how about I end with a small challenge for the 5 people who might read this? Do what I said, go to youtube and put your favorite song -- in the comments post your favorite cover of said song (I'm talking to you too blogmate Maggie). I wanna know what you find because seeing all these great artists out there makes me believe there is hope and maybe the Mayans weren't right...there is a great future ahead and it's gonna be filled with some awesome music to get us there.

I stumbled on this one when I was telling some friends about this song. It's acapella...he recorded tracks for his voice for each part. So impressive. This is the guy who inspired me to want to do this post -- Daniel DeBourg:


Legaci -- I've known about these guys for a few years just stumbling on one of their covers. I was happy to see they'd been hired to be Bieber's background singers on tour complete with a segment to showcase what they can do during each show. Man, we're overdue for a new Boyz II Men/Color Me Badd/All 4 One. Here's my favorite cover of theirs:


Brandon Hines -- It might be a sacrilege to say this but this dude might have outsung Maxwell on this song. Just sayin:


Ashley Watson -- This girl should go on The Voice. I mean, it's not like she'd be catapulted to stardom cause apparently no reality singing competition does much for the person that wins anymore but I just think it'd be awesome to see her up on that stage completely blowing those judges away. I stumbled on her tonight. She's just...wow:


Jayesslee -- Twins. Who sing. Well. That right there is a free easy marketing tool. Their harmonies are flawless:


Andrew Garcia, JR Aquino, & Passion -- Andrew was on American Idol a few seasons back. He did a cover of "Straight Up" for Paula and made it through. Kinda crashed when they went live but he's better than he was on that show. JRA I found a few years back and stumbled on in this video again. He's good stuff. Passion...this boy. Go to his youtube page and listen to the song he dedicated to his grandmother, "Well Done". He's flawless. Thought when I found this one, I'd just put them all together but check them out individually, too. Great song, by the way:


Lana Fame -- Stumbled on her in my travels tonight. This song is currently a popular youtube cover (Thanks, Bieber & Jaden!) but this girl's got the ability to do runs that remind me of old jazz singers. I'd love to see her tackle an Ella song or something. She could probably sound like a scatting trumpet. Enjoy:


Britten -- Throwing this one in even though I didn't find him on YouTube. Saw him open for someone about 2 years back and have been rocked by his voice ever since. This is one of the few covers you'd find him doing online. He has a CD out called "Six Strings and a Drum Machine" and the kid really does have radio ready stuff and such a unique, soulful voice:


Ace -- ending with another one that's not a find online but rather a friend. A very talented friend who the world needs to hear more from. She also needs to post more videos so using an old one that I love:

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Aweeeesome. They're all great. That Ashley blew me away