With the sad news of vocalist Whitney Houston's passing this weekend, many long-time fans came to YouTube to remember her and seek out her best-known music videos.
Her talents made her a favorite of musicians with many young, aspiring singers finding inspiration in her skills and powerful, emotional voice. In the particular, her song "I Will Always Love You" has remained a standby and, while it's certainly a difficult song to nail, many talented fans have posted their own takes on this hit in tribute over the past two days. We've collected just 10 of them in the playlist below.
(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)
The city of Dubai also paid tribute to her using the song in a display over the weekend orchestrated using their famed fountain.
It's a song that has traditionally commanded a great deal of respect for those who can perform it well, making it incredibly popular on television talent programs for years. Taiwan's Lin Hu Chung might have the most famous version around the web. He became an international sensation when his performance spread across the world in 2010:
This post was authored by Will Goodman, managing editor of CBSNews.com's The Feed, for a YouTube Trends series exploring viral video phenomena.
If we’ve learned anything from watching “The Partridge Family” growing up, it’s that the family that sings together, stays together. Okay, so if you’re like me you probably didn’t watch the actual show growing up and may have simply caught the occasional rerun episode on Nickelodeon. And, yes, they were actors and not a real family, but that doesn’t mean the lesson doesn’t ring true. Just look what’s happening on YouTube.
This video of Dicken Schrader and his two children, Milah and Korben, accompanying him in an amazing cover of Depeche Mode’s “Everything Counts” is just the most recent example of what is becoming a hit-maker online – families coming together to perform covers on YouTube. But like any trend you have to try and hone in on where it all began. In this case, it really can be pinpointed to one major and easily recognizable moment...
With word of his passing at age 75, "Soul Train" host Don Cornelius has become the top rising search on YouTube Wednesday afternoon as music fans of all ages seek out video of the long-time broadcaster.
On it's YouTube channel, "Soul Train" has a number of classic interviews conducted by Cornelius with some of music's biggest stars through the 1970s and 80s that remind us of his work and of the dance music that surrounded him.
(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)
Once a sub-set of UK bass music, the genre exploded last year, with electronic music festivals drawing tens of thousands of fans and acts like Skrillex topping charts. (Facebook’s year-end rankings of the most-played songs on their site found not one but two Skrillex jams in the top ten.) One could argue that the soaring popularity of dubstep – and the growing acceptance of club music in general – was the top trend in music last year.
Like they always do, YouTube users embraced the growth of dubstep, using it in endlessly creative ways – from amateur dance numbers to a capella covers. (There’s even a channel dedicated to dubstep “lyrics.”) Let’s take a look at some of the most popular bass-rocking clips from last year.
Marquese Scott, from the dance crew RemoteKontrols, kicks us off with this incredible one-shot video. With a dubstep remix of Foster the People’s “Pumped up Kicks” behind him, Scott shows off his chops. Scott has been featured on “So You Think You Can Dance” and “America’s Got Talent” (in addition to our site, The Feed.) He also racked up nearly 30 million views with this video. How can a dance be so robotic and yet so fluid? That, friends, is the power of dubstep.
On Friday, a cover of the song "Somebody That I Used to Know" performed by Walk Off the Earth began to draw attention for its use of just one guitar and five performers for all the music. By Sunday, the video was averaging three million views a day, with most of the viewers coming across it as it was shared on social media sites.
The band, which has posted videos on its channel dating back to June of 2009, had drawn a significant 4.8 million views up until last Thursday. But since then, their work has been seen almost 20 million times around the world.
Today, it remains one of our most shared and most viewed clips. It's the most viewed video in Germany, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and Sweden.
This week we added 7 new countries to our Trends Dashboard and, not unlike many other countries, music videos are among the most-shared and most-viewed in many of those regions. Today we wanted to take a look at the African continent where we've now added viewing data in Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria.
We're only days into December, but Justin Bieber has already found a big audience for the holidays.
This fall/winter, Bieber has released a series of music videos tied to the holiday season -- some of which helped push him over 2 billion overall views on YouTube. That number continues to rise.
Below you can see a chart of the videos he's released and the number of views they've received since Thanksgiving. So far they've been seen over 30 million times.
The video for Justin Bieber's Christmas single "Mistletoe" hit the web on October 18th -- one of two big videos to debut that week -- and it's picked up over 28 million views since. "Mistletoe" was one of the top rising searches globally on YouTube over the past 30 days and the video has been near the top of YouTube's music charts for the past two weeks.
Bieber is one of a few artists to have over 1 billion views, and, sometime on Sunday, Bieber's music video channel crossed the 2 billion view threshold. "Baby" was the most-viewed music video of 2010 and still averages hundreds of thousands of views per day.
Below you can track the views for Bieber's new single. While the biggest spike was, naturally, when it debuted, the video is averaging over one million views per day.
Beyonce's latest video hit the web late Sunday and has already picked up 3.5+ million views, but two new videos today are poised to draw lots of attention and are making a big splash.
The latest Christmas-themed offering from Justin Bieber is the most-shared here in the U.S. as well as Canada, Argentina, and Mexico among others. It picked up half a million views in less than a day and is drawing hundreds of thousands more by the hour.
Meanwhile, the new video from South Korea-based Girls' Generation drew over 3 million views in the past two days. It's currently at the top of the most-shared list in Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong.
The geographic boundaries are likely short-lived with Girls' Generation already climbing the most-shared list in the U.S. and Bieber's video rising quickly in Asia.
Recently we've been exploring the various kinds of one-man-bands that exist on YouTube and have seen lots of viewing interest. So far we've looked at #1: Solo Montages and #2Beatbox Musicians.
But, of course, there's a third kind of one man band that exists on YouTube...
NUMBER 3: Actual, traditional one man bands.
Perhaps the most-viewed such performer comes from Croatia, where Mileta Cvijanovć hits the streets under the name Cigo Man Band. This clip of Cigo performing in Rijeka, Croatia was uploaded by a YouTube user named DaleZak and it's been seen over 2 million times since it was posted at the end of 2008.
(The song he's covering is called "Budjav Lebac" by popular Serbian rock band S.A.R.S.)
While he has been captured by others on camera -- this video of him in Cesena, Italy has been seen over a million times as well -- Mileta has his own YouTube channel where his videos have 200,000 views.
Back in the North America in 2009, footage of Quebec-based one man band performer Scott Dunbar went big, drawing over a million views for his performance of "Billie Jean."
There are more than 8,000 "one man band" videos on YouTube, with hundreds from just the past month. In 2011, one of the most popular one man band performer is Bernhoft from Norway, who performs live but brings more technology into the mix. Just this past month, he made an appearance on Ellen performing this song that has over a million views.
Adele released the video for her single "Someone Like You" last week, and it's been seen over 3.4 million times since last Tuesday, making it the most viewed music video uploaded in the past seven days.
The clip is just her second full official video since "Rolling in the Deep" was posted way back last November. "Rolling" has over 140 million views and remains in the top 10 on YouTube's music charts. There are also a number of covers of the song that have over one million views.
We don't know how well "Someone Like You" will do just yet, though it's unlikely it would follow the same trajectory that "Rolling in the Deep" took. "Rolling in the Deep" took two months to reach 3.4 million views and, as our viewing data shows, the video didn't peak until this past summer.
The chart below is composed of monthly viewing totals:
If you haven't already heard of dubstep -- the form of electronic dance known for its heavy, heavy use of bass -- you might soon. YouTube data shows that the genre has been picking up broader interest throughout 2011. (It's even been spotted crossing over into the a cappella territory recently.) Here's a quick comparison for illustration:
Original
Dubstep remix
To be clear, dubstep is not a brand new genre, it's been well-known to electronic/dance aficionados for some time. And numerous mixes and even dubstep tutorials for DJs have existed on YouTube for a few years.
What is new is the major growing appetite for dubstep from the dance-music-loving public, and search data indicates the genre becoming more and more mainstream.
Here's a chart showing weekly, relative search interest in the term "dubstep" dating back to 2009. (The accomanying video first started trending back in May. It's also very loud.)
(May take a moment to load.)
As you can see, searches have been at their highest in just the past few weeks.
There are over 40,000 "dubstep"-related videos on YouTube -- and nearly 25,000 results for "dubstep remix." This was the year that we began to see the "dubstep remix" become a part of the pop-culture parody arsenal as well. Some musicians are exploring the genre on instruments not usually associated with it.
The UKFDubstep channel is based in the UK and is the most-subscribed music channel in that country. The channel has become a dubstep leader on YouTube, owning 4 of the top 5 most-viewed dubstep-tagged videos.
DISCOVER MORE:
Want to hear more? Check out these knowledgable playlists from experts Modestep and Magnetic Man.
This is part two (of three) in our series exploring the various types of "one man band" performers who are popular on YouTube. In part one, we looked at "beatbox musicians" who combine vocal abilities with instruments to create the unique sound of a larger group.
NUMBER 2: Multi-instrument musicians who create montaged video performances edited together.
This form of "one man band" can't be recreated live so well, but it does work very well for the YouTube video format. Similar to what many solo artists do in the studio, a musician or singer will create a multi-track recording of not just audio, but also video, that can be edited together for, most commonly, a multi-screen, layered effect, reproducing the sound for which you would normally need a larger band. For example:
That take evolved a bit, and we now see these types of "one man band" videos that eschew the multi-screen format for something a little more visually clever:
But what if you didn't even want to deal with mastering a bunch of instruments? One of the most popular trends in a cappella videos over the past two years has been the rise of one-man a cappella, something we've spotted not just in the U.S. but in the Middle East as well.
Popular YouTube artist KurtHugoSchneider showed that one-man a cappella doesn't need to be limited to the multi-screen format either.
Want more? The spread of the tablet has also given rise to one ipad bands as well...
The top rising search on YouTube this morning is for videos of R&B star Aaliyah Haughton who passed away in a 2001 plane crash at the age of 22. Today marks the 10th anniversary of her passing, which is likely the reason for the search spike.
While many are checking out videos for some of her most popular songs, we've also been seeing many talented Aaliyah fans posting videos of themselves covering their own favorites as a tribute. We've seen at least 50 from the past few days. Here's a selection of 10:
Those with quirky musical talents regularly find big viral success on YouTube demonstrating novel, captivating ways of performing tunes that we've never seen before. In particular, a recurring theme we always seem to come across are "one man bands" or individuals who are able to recreate the sound of a larger group of musicians all by themselves. We've found these often fall into three categories, which we'll explore over the next few days.
NUMBER 1: Performers who make nearly all the sounds with their voices and, perhaps, a single instrument.
Typically, there is some looping and/or beatboxing involved as is the case with comedian Reggie Watts, whose 2009 performance of "I Just Want To" alone has been seen over one million times:
Yancarlos Sanchez's Kalimba performance video -- alternately known as the "one man jazz band" -- was posted in 2008 and still draws views:
And finally, perhaps the best known on YouTube is Greg Patillo, whose beatboxing flute videos have been seen tens of millions of times. Here he performs, with his voice, flute, AND piano:
There are lots of examples of these that you might have seen (And it's not just guys that do this stuff), so feel free to share any others.
And check back soon for more on other two forms of popular YouTube "one man bands."
Director Spike Jonze famously made a name for himself producing unique and stylish music videos that many who've grown up in the past two decades are likely familiar with. His latest work is the video for Jay-Z and Kanye West's new single, "Otis," that saw its highly anticipated debut last evening and has quickly become a top rising search on the site. It drew over 100,000 views overnight in just the first 12 hours.
Jonze's two most-viewed videos on YouTube are 2007's "Flashing Lights" (22 million views), which was another collaboration with West, and Weezer's "Island in the Sun" (11 million views). Despite the fact that many of Jonze's best-known work was created and released pre-YouTube, his videos have been seen on the platform in the neighborhood of 100 million times so far.
(May take a moment to load. Watch them all in a playlist here.)
Fun fact: Jonze recently also drew 1.4 million views for a quick, personal video he shot of Yo-Yo Ma performing with a dancer named Lil' Buck at a charity event.
Another 20 million views for Rebecca Black. Black released her anticipated "My Moment" video in mid-July and here's a quick look back at the views it's picked up, which total roughly 22 million at the time of posting:
At it's peak, Black's video was seen 4.6 million times in one day.
Black's "Friday" was posted in February and became a web phenomenon in March.
And what a phenomenon it was. "Friday" racked up 100 million views in just roughly a month, which was faster than Justin Bieber accomplished it. As we pointed out, the fact that her first video was about a day of the week actually ended up being a contributing factor to that video's staying power.
This video of a boy with some surprising singing talent is said to have been captured in the area of Clark with the province of Pampanga, Philippines. It it, a young man identified as a local flute seller is captured covering a number of hit songs including some by Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, and Ne-Yo.
The clip has been viewed over 100,000 times in the past 24 hours and is spreading quickly on blogs and social media.
The "unexpected awesome singer" paradigm has, of course, been alive and well on YouTube for years (see: Susan Boyle) and continually draws interested viewers with each new iteration.
The Clark video and its behavior are quite reminiscent of another surprising talent -- in this case a Brazilian taxi driver who could channel Michael Jackson -- that went huge in early February. That clip went big in Argentina and then spread to the United States and elsewhere and has now been seen over four million times.
News of Amy Winehouse's untimely passing prompted music fans -- and others looking to learn more about the singer -- to seek out some of the 27 year old's most popular songs this weekend, according to YouTube's viewing and search data.
The top rising search on YouTube of the past week is, in fact, "amy winehouse rehab," the 2006-2007 hit single. Before this weekend, the largest previous spike in searches for "winehouse" on YouTube, came in June, when video leaked of a disastrous performance the star delivered in Belgrade.
Official videos of "Rehab" were watched around 6.5 million times over the weekend, while other songs like "Back to Black" and "You Know I'm No Good" were seen over 4 million times each.
The chart below shows the dramatic rise in views Saturday, when reports first spread.
This might be one of the most anticipated videos in YouTube's history. Rebecca Black, of "Friday" fame, has just released her second music video - "This Moment." The hit that made her famous is no longer available on the site, but she's started a new YouTube channel - here - so we're likely to see more from the young star.
