Stereoboard Look At The Biggest YouTube Sensations (Psy, Justin Bieber, Boyce Avenue Feature)

In the last few days, Youtube sensation Psy - the man behind famed 'Gangnam Style' - was confirmed for Capital FM's Summertime Ball. It just seems like yesterday when we first saw Psy and his friends dancing and thrusting their way through some strange choreography on course for e-world domination. But, it begs the question - how far can a Youtube sensation go? 

Well, judging from this particular example: extreme places, unimaginable places! Dubbed the King of Youtube, Psy's eccentric track is the only video in the website's history to break one billion views. While quirky at first, he has gone on to play a number of live performances around the world, including a New Year's Eve celebration in New York's Time Square alongside MC Hammer. This audience, however, was only a mere one million people... 

Though working for many years, his breakthrough has catapulted him to dizzying heights of fame, as well as giving him the opportunity to meet the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Bizarrely, it's reported that Ki-moon believes music has the power to overcome intolerance and looks to work closely with Psy. He's also been appointed a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations Children's Fund and held a talk in Oxford Union that saw tickets in higher demand than when John McCain, Michael Jackson or even the Dalai Lama spoke there. 

Seriously - this all comes from the great mind who brought you 'Gangnam Style'?! His follow up track 'Gentleman' was always going to pale in comparison to his breakthrough's success, but it hasn't stopped the views surpassing 230,000,000 in the first two weeks. Bizarre. 

And while quirk won over with Psy, Justin Bieber lucked out by having a talent manager stumble across his covers. Young and baby faced, the videos of Justin and his acoustic guitar are famed gemstones amongst Beliebers, showing Justin doing what thousands do every day: record their own covers at home and put them on Youtube.  That was around five years ago. Now at the ripe old age of 19, Justin has platinum albums under his belt, the record of being the first artist to have seven songs from a debut record to chart in the Billboard Hot 100 and his own 3D biopic concert film: Never Say Never. He has been nominated for Grammys, has sold over 15 million albums and is often compared to Michael Jackson (no comment), also proclaiming himself to be the Kurt Cobain of this generation (again, no comment). 

But while he has spent the best part of five years on the road from his humble beginnings to world domination, he's hit that sticky career point: being an adult. The transition from being a teen idol to a grown man has seen the most tumultuous times in his career: being busted with weed and a stun gun, troubles with his pet monkey, attacking paparazzi, appearing two hours late to a show, a '#CutForBieber' trending topic and to top it all off, he caused controversy by claiming that Anne Frank could have been a Belieber. That's just a few months worth of headlines for you, and it could just be the tip of the iceberg.  Where Psy is a grown man who's been working for years, Justin was catapulted to these heights of fame at a very young age, and now the whole world's watching as he goes a little off the rails.

And if this wasn't enough warning to perhaps steer clear of the limelight at such a young age, another Youtube sensation has arisen and been dubbed 'the second coming of Justin Bieber'. Austin Mahone, currently only 17 years old, rose to fame in 2011 from videos of his performances, and gathered a growing online following. The strong comparison to Bieber wasn't aided with his cover of 'Mistletoe', but with the aim of the game being to make it big, it's not exactly a bad comparison to have. Though his singles haven't debuted in the charts anywhere as highly as Justin's, he found himself signed to Universal Republic Records in August 2012 and has been chosen to support Taylor Swift on her Red Tour. He has, however, already had to drop out of school because of his growing fame.

From solo stars to the most viewed Independent band in the world: Boyce Avenue. Three brothers hailing from Florida, Boyce Avenue started posting a mix of cover songs and original works on their own Youtube channel. As with most un-established artists, the covers garnered more views than their own creations. 2007, they started their Youtube journey; by 2008 they had over 100,000 subscribers (currently, they sit at just under 3 million) and at present are heading towards 900 million video views. And where do they go outside of the interwebs? Wherever the music takes them, really. They tour and they play to packed shows - surely the dream for any musician? But it's not just us mere music fans who are singing their praises, their new cover of Michael Bublé's 'It's A Beautiful Day' opens with the man himself talking about how much he loved the band and their cover of his work. They capture the essence of where most musicians start on Youtube, but have taken it beyond the norm: simple but brilliant covers - that's all it took for these guys to make a career out of music. 

But why do you need to sing to become a Youtube sensation? Well, as proven by Andy McKee, you don't. To get a flavour of what he's about, 'Drifting' comes highly recommended. Back in 2006, his track became a featured video on the website and currently sits at around 47,000,000 views. Described as a fingerstyle guitarist, McKee doesn't play guitar in the most conventional of ways but, as you can see, is pretty spectacular at what he does. Though he had been working prior to Youtube, the exposure his videos gained has led him to be one of Candyrat Records' biggest success stories and best selling artists. Beyond that, he also contributed to Josh Groban's Grammy-nominated Christmas album a number of years back.

And from Psy to Andy McKee, it's clear to see that Youtube can take the weird and wonderful or the understated and brilliant and take it beyond the internet. They've been enough to allow people to sustain careers from a musical quirk, or take over the world overnight. These are just five examples of Youtube sensations who have had successful careers off the back of their millions of video views, and every day more of these potential stars are uploading their videos to the website. The chance of being picked up from the site? It admittedly grows slimmer, but it's clear that when you do find yourself 'discovered' via your videos, the possibilities are endless.

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