YouTube

I had a few hours to kill today so i decided to drain the day away by surfing YouTube. I've been guilty of this a few times, and im sure you have too. But up until today i had basically seen videos fall in three categories: comical (ie comedians, tv commercials, etc), pirated (ie simpsons) or cheesy-sleazy. But for the first time today, after filtering out all that nonsense i actually struck into the core of YouTube and what makes it such a revolutionary service: the ability to give real artists a medium to reach the world without the help of a big label.

Here's a great 10min short film entitled Who Wants to be an Amerikan by a Canadian Film Student Aaron Beckum.

And here is Mia Rose, who literally 4 weeks ago was just a girl with a great voice, and after posting a few videos of her singing is in the process of signing a record deal. Most of her songs are covers...but she's also posted a few of her own songs, for example Husband to Be - after being posted for only 3 weeks, has been viewed over 500,000 times! Listen folks, 10 years ago, she would be sitting in some grungy recording studio try to put together a "demo tape" and trying to sell it at "gigs" hoping that some "scout" would stumble upon her and sign her to their label.

The times a' changin'.