![In February of 2008, a 14-year-old boy put his cover of Chris Brown’s “With You” up on YouTube, the video-sharing website made popular just a few years earlier. Wearing jeans and a polo, the teenager sat on a couch in his basement, the walls adorned with posters of The Simpsons and Tupac, crooning the popular tune like a natural.
I first saw it when I was in college; it had only a couple hundred thousand views. “SO cute!” I wrote on the Facebook walls of my friends and in AIM message boxes. Like many others with the similar sentiment, I shared it because I liked it.
I wasn’t the only one.
By July of the same year, the little kid in the video, a mop-topped Canadian by the name of Justin Bieber, was signed to Island Def Jam records with Usher as his mentor—and the rest is history. The video now has over 40 million views.
In many ways, Justin paved the way for a new generation of teen stardom. Gone are the days of hawking demo tapes to record labels. Now there’s a new formula: sing popular songs, record them, put them on YouTube, build a fan base, and hope the right people see it and love it.
We scoured the would-be stars of the post-Bieber YouTube generation, trying to find the next Justin. Here are our favorites. Usher, you can thank us later.
Drew Tabor
Song: “Mirrors” (Justin Timberlake)
Views: 330,000
Why we love it: “Mirrors” is everything to love about J.T., so it’s a pretty big pair of shoes to fill for an acoustic guitar cover. Drew nails it.
What to listen for: She gets a little raspy on the hook—and it sounds super-indie.
Where you’d hear it: At the end of an episode of The Hills if it were 2006, or at a college coffee house open mic night.
Swag factor: She’s playing “Mirrors” against a MIRROR and the irony isn’t lost on us, folks. We also like that she’s not trying to wear anything too showy.
Bieber index: 3½ Biebers
Isaac and Ian Roney
Song: “U Smile” (Justin Bieber)
Views: 480,000
Why we picked it: Watching dozens of Justin Bieber covers on YouTube is enough to bring on that alcohol dependency that not even applying to marketing and PR jobs off of Craigslist can match. Every boy with shiny shaggy hair, a ukulele, and a dream is on the Internet trying to be the next JB, but these two brothers were our top choice.
Yeah, but why? Well, they’re, like, 8. They do a pretty good job with the song in a I-guess-I’m-stuck-going-to-my-sister’s-chorus-concert kind of way. Some of us watched the whole thing (twice!) (OK, it was me).
Bonus: They are being filmed by their mom, who can’t not be a stage mother. This makes it even better: molding and grooming and primping future idols of America! The boys do hand motions that someone had to teach them.
Swag factor: They’ve been studying the Justin method, but we hope they don’t quit their day jobs (of being 4th graders). Little pitchy, dawgs.
Fan insanity:
The verdict: We don’t think the record labels will be knocking down their door anytime soon (the world is only big enough for one Bieber), but we’re confident they could sell out a high school auditorium.
Bieber index: 2 ½ Biebers
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In February of 2008, a 14-year-old boy put his cover of Chris Brown’s “With You” up on YouTube, the video-sharing website made popular just a few years earlier. Wearing jeans and a polo, the teenager sat on a couch in his basement, the walls adorned with posters of The Simpsons and Tupac, crooning the popular tune like a natural.
I first saw it when I was in college; it had only a couple hundred thousand views. “SO cute!” I wrote on the Facebook walls of my friends and in AIM message boxes. Like many others with the similar sentiment, I shared it because I liked it.
I wasn’t the only one.
By July of the same year, the little kid in the video, a mop-topped Canadian by the name of Justin Bieber, was signed to Island Def Jam records with Usher as his mentor—and the rest is history. The video now has over 40 million views.
In many ways, Justin paved the way for a new generation of teen stardom. Gone are the days of hawking demo tapes to record labels. Now there’s a new formula: sing popular songs, record them, put them on YouTube, build a fan base, and hope the right people see it and love it.
We scoured the would-be stars of the post-Bieber YouTube generation, trying to find the next Justin. Here are our favorites. Usher, you can thank us later.
Drew Tabor
Song: “Mirrors” (Justin Timberlake)
Views: 330,000
Why we love it: “Mirrors” is everything to love about J.T., so it’s a pretty big pair of shoes to fill for an acoustic guitar cover. Drew nails it.
What to listen for: She gets a little raspy on the hook—and it sounds super-indie.
Where you’d hear it: At the end of an episode of The Hills if it were 2006, or at a college coffee house open mic night.
Swag factor: She’s playing “Mirrors” against a MIRROR and the irony isn’t lost on us, folks. We also like that she’s not trying to wear anything too showy.
Bieber index: 3½ Biebers
Isaac and Ian Roney
Song: “U Smile” (Justin Bieber)
Views: 480,000
Why we picked it: Watching dozens of Justin Bieber covers on YouTube is enough to bring on that alcohol dependency that not even applying to marketing and PR jobs off of Craigslist can match. Every boy with shiny shaggy hair, a ukulele, and a dream is on the Internet trying to be the next JB, but these two brothers were our top choice.
Yeah, but why? Well, they’re, like, 8. They do a pretty good job with the song in a I-guess-I’m-stuck-going-to-my-sister’s-chorus-concert kind of way. Some of us watched the whole thing (twice!) (OK, it was me).
Bonus: They are being filmed by their mom, who can’t not be a stage mother. This makes it even better: molding and grooming and primping future idols of America! The boys do hand motions that someone had to teach them.
Swag factor: They’ve been studying the Justin method, but we hope they don’t quit their day jobs (of being 4th graders). Little pitchy, dawgs.
Fan insanity:
The verdict: We don’t think the record labels will be knocking down their door anytime soon (the world is only big enough for one Bieber), but we’re confident they could sell out a high school auditorium.
Bieber index: 2 ½ Biebers
