Surprising (and Killer) Justin Bieber Cover

Last week my friend Lauren went to see Justin Bieber in San Jose. As she rolled out a series of concert images on instagram, the song “Baby” began worming in my ear. Not Bieber’s version of Baby, but a cover I’d heard a few years ago.

Backing up a little further, though…

I kind of missed the whole Justin Bieber thing. As he was becoming a something, I was headed a somewhere. Which turned out to be a no-where. A nowhere insulated from Bieber mania.

I remember friends posting videos on facebook of their kids dancing to “Justin Bieber,” and my fellow I-like-teen-pop-and-don’t-care-who-knows-it peeps would throw out tweets and status updates about listening to the “the whole album”, but I wouldn’t have recognized a Justin Bieber song if it gnawed on my earlobe.

So in 2011, when the dude and I saw a young teenager perform a self-styled cover of “Baby” as her audition for the first season of X-Factor, I had never actually heard the original version of the song. But this, this I couldn’t get enough of.

Oh my gosh, this kid! Her smokey jazzy voice. Her genuine enjoyment of the swirling notes. Her freshness and youth and unguardedness. Her voice is everything that characterizes my favorite female vocal style: effortless and soulful with a smoothness that drinks like sorrow on a rainy day.

Nagged by the concert-photo implanted earworm, I tunneled the iTunes galaxies (tough work when you’re searching for the song “Baby” by an artist who has dropped her last name) and finally found it.

Earworm slaughtered!

In the process, I found her Youtube channel (this cover of “Sweet Escape”  is pretty fun) and discovered she’s working on an album that she hopes will be out this year.

I’ve now been listening to her Baby cover alongside my favorite Clare Bowen and Sam Palladio tracks from Nashville (namely this one and this one). Which may mean I’ve had an extra glass (or two?) of wine this week.

What other little-knowns have I missed? The desert has seriously dried up my playlist.

Other fun: Lauren’s defense that Bieber can sing and my favorite album review of all time (worth the read, I promise).