Self-Made YouTube Musicians

This is a style of music video that really needs to be mentioned even though it's only a cousin of the classic music video. The musicians do such a great job at selling their sound with their look that people find out about them through YouTube. It makes a musician more accessible to their audience and makes them seem like real people. Well, that's because they usually are real people. This method is successful because not only do the high quality videos do well, but the audience would just as quickly click on a video of someone singing through their webcam at their laptop. 

The first band I associate with this style of video production is Pomplamoose. Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn's band name is a play on the french word for grapefruit. In June 2008, the band starting making VideoSongs. A VideoSong is defined by Pomplamoose in most of their about sections in the downbars of their videos as "a new medium with two rules:
1. What you see is what you hear (no lip-syncing for instruments or voice). 2. If you hear it, at some point you see it (no hidden sounds)."

How well does this self made technique work? Well, Nataly Dawn is currently touring around the country to promote her new album being released by Nonesuch Records. Nonesuch is the label created by Iron & Wine. Pomplamoose also collaborated and toured with Ben Folds.

One of my other favorite self-made musicians is KNOWER, better known as Louis Cole and Genevieve Artadi. They have a VHS/standard definition/3D graphics visual aesthetic that matches their sound. I found out about KNOWER when they were introduced to me by Pomplamoose.

Julia Nunes is a really charming vocalist and instrumentalist who also worked with Ben Folds. Other than her stunning voice, Julia can definitely be deemed one of those responsible for the ukulele trend that became popular a few years ago because of YouTube. Molly Ringwald once said on Good Morning America that she started playing ukulele after watching videos of Julia. Julia's also collaborated with Ben Kweller.

The most successful YouTube-made band actually pulled on the fame of another musical group by covering one of their songs. First Aid Kit are Swedish sisters Johanna and Kiara Söderberg. While I love First Aid Kit's original work, their cover of Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" will always be my favorite work of the duet. Johanna and Kiara use bold country twang harmonies to create a pretty original sound. They have extended far beyond their cover work and are now promoting their 2012 album release and just announced a tour with Conor Oberst.

Do you want to be a famous musician? Acquire the success yourself. Upload a video.