Top 10 YouTube Cover Artists - TopX Ep.7

- Are you ready for some peppy, PG fun? You better be, cause coming in at #10 is Cimorelli, a group of 6 sisters from Sacramento, California. - Cimorelli uses their strength in numbers, relying primarily on an a-cappella style to cover popular, usually uplifting pop songs. Some of their most popular covers include songs by One Direction, Justin Bieber, Taylor swift, although they’ve recently been feature original tracks as well. Although they sometimes mix in the occasional guitar, and sometimes even have full blown karaoke track undernieth, they’re still most popular for their purely vocal performances. - That said, their recent videos have shown a huge spike in production value, now featuring fully realized music videos, soundmix and all. This, of course, makes a lot of sense when you consider that the sisters have been picked up by Universal Music’s Island Label. As you can imagine, you can grab their songs on iTunes if you like what you hear. - One other fun thing they do on their channel is a hybrid sitcom music show called Summer with Cimorelli, which follows the girls over the course of a summer where eldest sister Christina is left in charge. Chaos ensues, as do the expected musical numbers.

#9: Walk Off the Earth youtube.com/walkofftheearth

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- Cover artists seem to fall into 2 categories; those that try to emulate a song as best as possible, and those that try to add their own special touch to the song to create something completely different. This next group from Canada, definitely falls into the later category. - Chances are somebody has already shown you their incredible cover of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used To Know”, where all of the members of the band play the same guitar while 3 separate vocalists sing. Another personal favorite of mine is their a-cappella version of T-swifts “Trouble”, which features beat boxer KRNFX. . Don’t judge. All of their videos feature a cool gimmick or style that makes them as visually impressive as they are sonically. - Aside from the fun tricks they like to pull for each video, like throwing instruments to different band member in single take shots, their style is heavily defined by their 3 vocalists. Each has a unique sound and range, allowing for striking harmonies that add layers of complexity to even the simplest of songs.

#8: Tyler Ward youtube.com/TylerWardMusic

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- A young Tyler Ward was apparently enrolled in the United-Stares Air Force Academy, but found his personality to be incompatible to military life and decided to leave and focus on his passion…can you guess what? - He describes his style as Acoustic Rock Country Pop, and his style reflects that mishmash of genres rather nicely. That said, while most of his most popular clips use an acoustic guitar, there’s still plenty of other clips that he’s that don’t, instead incorporating a whole bunch of other instruments and even other vocalists instead. - One thing that sets Tyler’s covers apart is the fact that he often employs live musicians in his videos, instead of karaoke backing trackings. This gives a lot of the songs more a much more multi-layered authenticity, and just generally sounds great. - What’s cool about this live band style is that it helps strike a interesting balance between originality and impression. What I mean by that is that Tyler rarely changes the tempo or general sound of the song, they often sound very similar to the original. However, because its done mostly through real instruments, you get to hear the songs distilled to their “baser elements”, injecting originality into them and allowing you to easily deconstruct the individual parts.

#7: Sam Tsui youtube.com/TheSamTsui

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- Sam Tsui is a great example of putting your most natural talents to good use. Snicker all you want, but he’s made a name for himself doing incredible covers of songs usually performed by female artists, or those sung mostly in falsetto. That’s because he has a naturally high voice, holy crap what a voice it is. - So, remember when I said that some cover artists like to add their own unique flair to a cover. While, Sam goes one step further, by adding his own unique flair to two or more songs, by mashing ‘em all together. This works especially well because he sings a lot of songs even higher than they were originally recorded, so he mashes them together easily because he can choose the level at which to sing them. - Like almost everyone else on this list, you grab Sam’s music on iTunes. Plus he’s also released a full fledged album that features covers by Michael Jackson, Beyonce and Jason Mraz

#6: Kurt Huge Schneider youtube.com/KurtHugoSchneider

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- Although he does plenty of covers of his own, Kurt Schneider’s channel differentiates itself from the others on this list because it serves as a platform for other YouTube cover artists. Remember our last entry, Sam Tsui? Well the two are apparently best friends, so you’ll actually see a lot of Sam’s most impressive work appear on Kurt’s channel, - along with a number of other artists you’ll see here on the list. - In fact, if you check the “About” page, Kurt makes no mention of himself as a cover artist, instead referring to himself as a music producer and filmmaker. And that’s what I mean by his channel acting as a platform for other cover artists; he collaborates and works with them to make high quality videos, both in a visual and vocal sense. - Although he works with a ton of other artists, I mention his work with Sam Tsui for a reason, and it’s not just because they’re buddies. One of his most interesting group of videos are these simulated a-cappella videos, where camera tricks and editing make it seem like there are multiple Sams on screen at once, all singing together. #5: Alex Goot youtube.com/gootmusic

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