Let's be honest here for a minute. I'm a little jealous of Colbie Caillat. Not only does the 22-year-old singer-songwriter from Malibu look a lot like Jennifer Aniston, Colbie also shot to fame like a speeding rocket shortly after being discovered. Normally, this wouldn't be a big surprise if it weren't that this time around, the one that discovered her wasn't some fast-talking cagey label exec crossing his fingers hoping he's found the next Fergie. It was the American public. Which means that her success, well before the existence of an album, a hit song, or a even a manager, was already guaranteed. And the forum that made it all possible? MySpace.
It is not a new development that millions of Americans are viewing, exchanging, and discussing content over the web, which has essentially replaced radio and television in many cases. More and more people favor Youtube over MTV, and Pandora over FM airwaves. MySpace, famous for its aesthetically horrific blockiness (my eyes are sensitive to web design ugliness), has been a tool for musicians ever since its creation in 2003. Mainly because it is extraordinarily easy to upload songs, pics, tour dates, and collect "friends" (fans, essentially). All for free regardless of whether or not you had an account. For example, if I had KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" stuck in my head, all I had to do was go onto her MySpace and keep hitting play.
Which brings us back to Colbie. Through MySpace, word traveled about her catchy acoustic ditty "Bubbly", which soon garnered thousands of hits a day. 17 million total plays. 17 million. For four months, she was the most popular unsigned artist in her genre. Meanwhile, I can't figure out why I've just only barely passed the 1500 mark on my own MySpace page. Her music, gentle and relaxed guitar-led pop, sounds like summertime on the beach. Her voice is steadily sultry and sweet, sparkling over with charm. It is hard not to fall in love with the songs, despite disposable lyrics and predictable harmonies.
Nevertheless, America has spoken, and it is refreshing to see the receiving end of entertainment taking control for once. And I'm not talking the American Idol cutthroat-reality-TV idiocy where audiences "phone in" or "vote online" for talent already pre-screened by some suit in some Hollywood office somewhere. Music is not about competition, it's about appeal. How can audiences appreciate music when they are being told what to like?
Before Colbie, I thought that there was no hope anymore for guitar-wielding songstresses in the mainstream. In the era of vocal divas belting three-octave-ranges to bootylicious bimbos gyrating in some sort of skimpy outfit, I was ready to throw in the towel and admit that Sheryl Crow was the last of her kind. Glad to know that modern technology, with flaws and restraints of its own, has allowed us to liberate ourselves from media moguls. So play on, Colbie, because the sole reason you are touring with the Goo Goo Dolls or playing Mixfest with Matchbox 20 before you've even hit your mid-20s is that there are regular people who love your music. Not because of clever marketing. Or billboards. Or Pepsi commercials. In the meantime, I'm going to keep working on those numbers on my own MySpace.
