Cheers to Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Avi Kaplan, Kirstie Maldonado and Kevin Olusola as Pentatonix New Album Reaches Top Spot On Billboard 200 Chart December 5, 2015Marshall Dickson By Sam Gutelle via TubeFilter on October 28, 2015 Thanks to the popularity of its latest album, Pentatonix has added another feather to its cap. The a cappella group from Dallas, best known for its YouTube channel, has reached the top of the Billboard 200 with its 12-day-old, self-titled effort. Pentatonix (the album, not the group itself) arrived on October 16th, with both regular and deluxe versions available from retailers like iTunes. In contrast to the group’s previous albums, which feature a majority of cover songs, almost all of the tracks on Pentatonix are original songs. A music video for album’s lead single, “Can’t Sleep Love,” has received more than 6.9 million views since its September 4th release on YouTube. By reaching the top spot of the Billboard 200, which shares the most popular albums of each week as determined by a combination of sales figures and streaming media hits. Naturally, this formula gives Pentatonix an advantage, considering the group’s popularity on sites like YouTube. Nonetheless, it is still impressive to see the Texan fivesome–consisting of Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Avi Kaplan, Kirstie Maldonado, and Kevin Olusola–at the top of Billboard’s chart, ahead of well-known musical celebrities like Demi Lovato and The Weeknd. While this is Pentatonix’s first trip to the top of the Billboard 200, its previous albums have been big successes as well. The group’s 2014 Christmas album, for example, reached #1 on the iTunes charts. Other big ventures from the a cappella fivesome include a documentary chronicling its On My Way Home tour and a cameo appearance in the film Pitch Perfect 2. NewsShare : Tweet
Thanks to the popularity of its latest album, Pentatonix has added another feather to its cap. The a cappella group from Dallas, best known for its YouTube channel, has reached the top of the Billboard 200 with its 12-day-old, self-titled effort. Pentatonix (the album, not the group itself) arrived on October 16th, with both regular and deluxe versions available from retailers like iTunes. In contrast to the group’s previous albums, which feature a majority of cover songs, almost all of the tracks on Pentatonix are original songs. A music video for album’s lead single, “Can’t Sleep Love,” has received more than 6.9 million views since its September 4th release on YouTube. By reaching the top spot of the Billboard 200, which shares the most popular albums of each week as determined by a combination of sales figures and streaming media hits. Naturally, this formula gives Pentatonix an advantage, considering the group’s popularity on sites like YouTube. Nonetheless, it is still impressive to see the Texan fivesome–consisting of Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Avi Kaplan, Kirstie Maldonado, and Kevin Olusola–at the top of Billboard’s chart, ahead of well-known musical celebrities like Demi Lovato and The Weeknd. While this is Pentatonix’s first trip to the top of the Billboard 200, its previous albums have been big successes as well. The group’s 2014 Christmas album, for example, reached #1 on the iTunes charts. Other big ventures from the a cappella fivesome include a documentary chronicling its On My Way Home tour and a cameo appearance in the film Pitch Perfect 2.
Mashup Producer Melodysheep Signs With Talent Agency WME December 5, 2015Marshall Dickson By Sam Gutelle via TubeFilter on November 24, 2015 Talent agencies are racing to link up with online video notables, and the latest content creator to sign up with one of them is John Boswell. Boswell, who is best known for the mashup videos he creates on his melodysheep YouTube channel, has joined forces with WME. Boswell first rose to digital prominence in 2009, when he created “A Glorious Dawn,” which auto-tunes famous astrophysicists like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking to create an oddly catchy musical number. “A Glorious Dawn,” along with the other chapters in Boswell’s Symphony of Science series, has become an unlikely tool for educators. In recent years, Boswell has also teamed up with a number of media companies to produce memorable tracks. He promoted a National Geographic TV special with a track called “Window on the Universe,” turned Disney Channel shows into music in a series of “DJ Melodies,” and, most successfully, scored tens of millions of views with an assortment of remixes created in partnership with PBS. Here’s the most popular one, which puts a new spin of Mister Rogers Neighborhood: Through his partnership with WME, Boswell will be able to find more brand partners to work with while also exploring additional opportunities across multiple platforms. He will continue to be represented by SMGSB. NewsShare : Tweet
National Geographic Turns To Auto-Tune Artist Melodysheep To Promote Hubble Documentary April 27, 2015Marshall Dickson By Sam Gutelle via Tubefilter On April 24th, 2015, the Hubble Space Telescope turned 25, and in order to celebrate its birthday, National Geographic premiered a special called Hubble’s Cosmic Journey. The hour-long TV special, which is narrated by astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, first arrived on the National Geographic Channel on April 15th. As the scientific society prepares more airings, it has turned to Melodysheep for some additional promotion. The auto-tune artist, who has more than 267,000 subscribers on YouTube, has created a video called “Window on the Universe” that provides a musical accompaniment to Nat Geo’s Hubble special. “Window on the Universe” smashes together narration from NASA engineers, astronauts, and Dr. Stephen Hawking to create an auto-tuned song about the Hubble Space Telescope. These messages are combined with footage from the telescope, include some delectable shots of the Hubble Deep Field. Melodysheep, whose remixes put a musical spin on educational content, often uses space as inspiration. His most popular video, titled “A Glorious Dawn,” uses footage from the Carl Sagan-hosted version of Cosmos and includes a “guest verse” from Dr. Hawking. It has received more than 9.5 million views to date. “At National Geographic Channel we felt the need to pay tribute to Hubble with something special,” said Emanuele Madeddu, SVP Creative and Marketing for National Geographic Channels International, in a release, “so we partnered with the creative talent of Melodysheep to remix the best quotes from our Hubble’s Cosmic Journey.” Hubble’s Cosmic Journey will continue to air regularly on the National Geographic Channel. For more information about the special, head over to the Nat Geo website. NewsShare : Tweet
