After a tragically long trip home from Rome, my roommate Colton and I got into a fight. We always get into fights when we’re exhausted, because we both have very strong (and usually, opposite) opinions about things. It’s fine, it doesn’t affect our friendship. We’re pretty much resigned to the fact that the majority of our relationship is disagreeing with each other. But this time the debate really hit home, because he was tearing into a major pillar of my existence- YouTube musicians.
You have all probably gathered by now that I love YouTube. I love YouTube so much that if it were a person I would have already proposed. I didn’t start getting into musicians on YouTube until I discovered Julia Nunes, who I’ll talk about in a second, but now I’m addicted. A good majority of my iTunes music catalog is Dave Days, Alex Day, Julia Nunes, George Watsky, and all the other incredible YouTube-based musicians. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. So today I wanted to lay out some of my absolute favorites, in the hopes that someone else out there will find love in the independent music community on YouTube.
1. Julia Nunes
I credit Julia Nunes as my favorite musician, in conjunction with Jack’s Mannequin. That’s a tall honor, considering that, in general, I dislike female singers. Something about her smoky vocals and creative instrumental choices (her song Comatose, one of my favorites, primarily uses beat-boxing and goofy sounds for the background music) just makes me want to fall asleep to her music every night. And sometimes I do. Either way, both her covers and her original music are incredible, and I think the world needs more of her.
2. Alex Day
I’ll be honest- in general, I don’t really like Alex Day’s music. His regular YouTube videos are fun and hilarious, but he’s not the greatest singer in the world. However, his song Forever Yours is one of my all-time favorites, and the music video (above) never ceases to give me chills. I use the instrumental version of it for Cooking with Gandalf’s theme song, and it was the backdrop to our “best of” video late 2011. Other favorites of his include I Hate Mario Kart Wii, Living on the Underground, and his new single, Lady Godiva, is growing on me.
3. George Watsky
George Watsky is my guilty pleasure, because his music is sometimes so profane I’m embarrassed to sing it out loud. I fell in love with him after I started watching his slam poetry (in fact, his poem “Drunk Text Message to God” was the central piece in my poetry program for speech this year, and there were only two tournaments in which I didn’t place.), but then I found his music. I’ll admit; at first, I wasn’t too impressed. But then I started listening to it more, and I couldn’t stop. He’s just so freaking smart, and his lyrics, profane as they are, are so thought-provoking. Take the above music video for example. “All my meals are business meals because my business is not starving.” *swoon*
4. Dave Days
I’ve been watching Dave Days for a while, and I remember all the Miley Cyrus parodies in his parent’s basement where he pretended to be in love with her cardboard cutout. And I remember how cool it was when he actually met Miley in real life and shot a music video with her for one of his best songs to date. I got to see him play live at VidCon, and it was incredible.
5. Alex Goot
Colton really hates Alex Goot, and I think Ellen does too, but sometimes about his adorable square glasses and slightly higher voice just makes me swoon. To be honest, I think I like his covers a bit more than his original music, but he’s a pretty complete package. He does all the background instruments for his songs (unless he’s collaborating, obviously). He plays drums, piano, guitar, and probably everything else in between. I used his cover of Soul Sister on my summer recap video from last year and I listened to him almost exclusively for about a month. Also, listen to his song Sensitivity- it’s my favorite 😉 Other good ones: Sad But True, Stay for the Weekend, and I Love Your Existence.
So those are probably my top five YouTube artists at the moment, but other ones to check out are Charlie McDonnell (who directed/edited the Alex Day video above), All Caps, Luke Conard, Boyce Avenue, Bad Lip Reading, Chester See, and Molly Lewis.
