[1] YouTube seems to be a good place to find many good singers (and bad ones too). The pool of talent there is enormous. From randomly stumbling across them, I’ve come some very good ones that film themselves, hoping to get their big break and get picked up by record labels.

You know they have talent when they sing cover songs better than the actual singer, with just a guitar or piano. One other sign of a good singer is when he or she makes an original song (that is really bad) and [2] makes it sound good. [3] America’s Got Talent may have to dip into YouTube to see the many good singers and musicians out there.

Two of my favorites are [4] Marie Digby and [5] Sarah Barailles. Thanks to YouTube, they did get their big breaks on Carson Daly and The Late Late Show respectively. Last year, Sarah Barailles was featured as the iTunes “free single of the week”. She then released her album (under the Sony BMG label) a month later, became the most downloaded album on iTunes and debut at #45 on the billboard charts. Thanks to [6] Angela for telling me about her. I was going to post her cute “Love Song” video but the embed code has been disabled. [7] Here’s the link to her official music video posted a couple of months ago.

I stumbled across Marie Digby on YouTube when I was searching for a James Morrison song (You give me something). Gotta say she does play a great cover of that song on her guitar but her trump card is Rihanna’s “Umbrella” song (see the video below). You may want to fast forward about a minute or so to hear her. She also [8] sings a better version of Britney’s Gimme More on her guitar (actually makes that song sound good). I believe she is releasing an album pretty soon.

Judge for yourself below … what a great TV debut, isn’t she something!

[9] Link

Couple of weeks ago, J was laughing at my choice of iTunes song downloads. It seems that most of my songs of recent months are from TV commercials or previews. I’ve become quite good at searching for a song I’ve just heard on TV and finding it on iTunes (without even knowing the singer’s name). Can’t help it, just happen to like the songs…

1234 - Feist (Apple iPod Nano commercial)
All that I want - Weepies (JC Penney Xmas commercial)
The Way that I am - Ingrid Michaelson (Old Navy commercial)
You give me something - James Morrison (played during the FX channel previews)
This is the day - The The (M&M commercial)
What I Like About You - The Romantics (Esurance commercial)
Love Song - Sarah Barailles (Rhapsody commercial)
Sweet Pea - Amos Lee (AT&T Wireless commercial)
My Patch - Jim Noir (Target commercial)
Family Affair - Mary J. Blige (Propel Fitness Water commercial)

Never realized that YouTube and TV could be such a good source of music.