Who are some present day singers who were seen on Youtube by someone in the business and then signed to a label?
I know of one group. These guys were seen after some 6 million people viewed their “12 Days of Christmas” by the president of Atlantic Records (or something like that). The video was 10 years old by the time it got put up, but the group reunited and put out 2 Christmas cds, with a regular record coming out sometime in the next year.
I don’t know about youtube but MySpace has led to a few. I can think of Colbie Caillat and that other really attractive, glasses-wearing woman - shoot, can’t think of her name…
…then there is the guy who got picked by Neal Schon to be the new vocalist for Journey by watching his youtube video - something Pinera from the Phillippines…
Similarly, Tommy DeCarlo was tapped to replace the late Brad Delp in Boston, thanks to a video he’d posted on MySpace.
They did a performance at the ad agency where I work this week…very entertaining.
Justin Bieber was apparently making tween girl hearts go pitter-patter on YouTube long before he got signed to a label.
Another Canadian artist known for using YouTube and MySpace pretty extensively in her pre-major-label days is Lights. Of course, as far as actually getting herself said contract, it’s not clear whether it was because of her ginormous YouTube following or because of her manager, Jian Ghomeshi… between his former gig in Moxy Fruvous and his current gig at CBC, dude’s got industry contacts out the wazoo.
Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez made a Youtube video for $300 and turned it into a $30 million dollar directing gig in Hollywood.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk
Story: http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzzlog-uruguay-to-hollywood.html
Ingrid Michaelson, who is just completely awesome.
Expanding out of music, according to a blog (quoting the BBC) Fede Alverez from Uraguay supposedly got a deal to direct a $30million movie based on a YouTube short called Ataque de Pánico (Panic Attack!) about huge robots attacking a city.
Here’s the blog, with the really cool video.
Here’s the original BBC story.
Also on that page, which is why I linked to it instead of directly to the BBC page, is Neill Blomkamp’s Alive in Joburg, which was the short that led to District 9, though I don’t think it was originally posted and noticed on YouTube.
Bless you; that’s her…