Lisa Lavie
Encyclopedia
Lisa Lavie is a Canadian singer and songwriter originally from LaSalle, Québec
, Canada
.
Lavie is known for using the Internet
to independently
promote
her own music and concerts. Lavie's vocals have appeared on soundtrack
s of major motion pictures, and her independently
produced
debut album Everything or Nothing was released on iTunes
in 2008.
Lavie has received national television coverage for her vocals, and for her production of the charity
collaboration video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
." She was chosen as a vocalist for Yanni
's 2010-2011 tours of South, Central, and North America, and his late-2011 tour of Eastern Europe and Asia.
dancer, and Danny, a disk jockey
known around Montréal as DJ Devious, were her family musical inspirations. She said she listened devotedly to Mariah Carey
.
By age 16 she toured Canada as a backup singer
with the French-Canadian hip hop group Dubmatique
, performing before thousands. Also at age 16, Lavie recorded a demo
CD. Meanwhile, Lavie worked on the fringes of the music industry, including co-owning and managing Harmony Karaoke
in Montréal in 2002.
In 2004 her demo CD reached songwriter-producer Ben Margulies
, a co-producer
of Mariah Carey's first album. Margulies was struck by what he called a "one in a million" voice: "It was like the first time I heard Mariah." Lavie initially thought Margulies' attempts to contact her were friends' hoaxes, playing on her childhood devotion to Carey.
After three months, Margulies and Lavie connected. After Lavie sang her original, "Guys Are All the Same" to Margulies over a cellphone from a Montréal shopping mall, Margulies responded: "I heard something really special in her voice... I said, fly out here right away." Lavie later wrote "I couldn't believe that Mariah Carey's producer had discovered me. From the age of 10 to 17, I don't think I even listened to anybody else. Her voice and melodies captured me." A planned three-day visit to Santa Barbara, California in July, 2004 evolved into a permanent move for the 21 year old Lavie.
Ben Margulies
expressed his estimation of Lavie's potential: "Lisa has an undeniably brilliant tone and a vocal quality that is beyond my ability to quantify. ... I've worked with a lot of great singers, and she's got that something extra, something special... everything it takes to be a superstar
." Lavie developed her songwriting ability, her lyrics said to be based on her own life experiences. Lavie is listed as songwriter/composer on all songs of what was to become her first album, including solo songwriter/composer on three tracks.
Lavie placed songs on the soundtrack
s of the 2006 motion pictures Stick It
starring Jeff Bridges (Lavie's original song "If I Only Knew") and The Guardian
starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher (Lavie's version of "Mockingbird").
In August, 2006, Lavie signed as a songwriter/publisher with the performing rights organization
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI
), formalizing her entry into the profession. She was featured in the "Hitmakers" section of BMI MusicWorld Magazine in spring of 2007. Lavie "attend(ed) the 56th annual BMI Pop Awards at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on May 20, 2008 in Beverly Hills, California," and "attend(ed) the 2008 Spirit of Life Award dinner honoring Doug Morris on October 15, 2008 in Santa Monica, California."
Even after the movie soundtrack vocals, a career breakthrough remained elusive, relying on personal contacts and networking in media
and record label
s. Lavie later characterized praises from industry executives as enthusiastic but non-committal, leading Lavie and Margulies to pursue independent
production of a first album
.
, loosely mirrored by her MySpace
page. She said she did not anticipate that her do-it-yourself video performances would advance her career: "I had no idea what to expect when I started uploading videos on YouTube." She initially posted non-studio videos of herself singing her own original songs, including two videos of her singing inside a car. Lavie said she responded personally to so many viewer comments that she said she developed carpal tunnel syndrome
requiring the wrist brace visible in her ET Canada
interview.
Lavie's responses to viewers backfired on September 11, 2007. YouTube software interpreted her many replies to viewer comments as computer bot
-generated spam
, and automatically suspended her account. Her YouTube fans initiated an online petition campaign, and Lavie's YouTube account was reinstated two days after suspension.
Weeks after her channel's reinstatement, Lavie's studio performance of her original song "Angel" was featured on YouTube's "front page" and attracted over one million views within days. For days surrounding October 3, 2007—when the "Angel" video achieved its 1,000,000th view—Lavie continued to interact with viewers online. But past were the days in which she could attempt to respond to every viewer comment: the "Angel" video alone had registered 10,000 viewer comments when it crossed the 1,000,000 view threshold.
During the period of the "Angel" feature, Lavie's YouTube channel grew from under 4,000 subscribers (mid-September 2007) to about 8,000 subscribers (October 7, 2007), and, after ensuing television exposure in October and November, to over 11,000 subscribers (early December 2007). Total video views in the same periods grew from 188,000 to 1.79 million to about 3.3 million, respectively. In three and a half months, Lavie's YouTube channel rose from 74th to 34th most subscribed YouTube musician of all time.
Skeptical of the value of YouTube views alone, the Globe and Mail commented that Angels YouTube views put the video in "not what you'd call exalted company," noting that "an unsuspecting prairie dog whose five-second long glare at the camera became known as the Dramatic Chipmunk clip" had received three million views "in a matter of days." However, after describing "real" world accomplishments of YouTube "stars" Esmee Denters
and Ysabella Brave
, the Globe and Mail article commented that "Lisa Lavie may have reason to expect big things."
By the time of the Globe and Mail commentary, Entertainment Tonight (ET) Canada
had already dubbed Lavie an "Internet singing sensation" and "Internet phenomenon", quoting her new designation, "the next Mariah Carey." The following month, CTV
's eTalk
featured how "music stars" like Lavie would "get to the top on their own terms." In that televised phone interview, Lavie explained how in today's music business, to earn the confidence of skittish record label
s, artists themselves have to create their own buzz
.
After this media exposure, Lavie continued to use Internet websites such as YouTube (mainly), but also MySpace, Facebook, BlogTV and Twitter, to propagate that buzz
. She continued to work, personally, on her own promotion and communication with existing fans. The YouTube Partner Program, a revenue sharing arrangement allowing creators and producers of original content to earn money from their videos, accepted Lavie. In February 2008, Lavie was one of three YouTube musicians invited to perform at the "YouTube Event" in New York. In March, 2008, Lavie's video performance of her original song "Angel" was among six YouTube Awards
finalists among all of that website's music videos. In November 2008, Lavie performed at the San Francisco YouTube Live
event.
Continuing without affiliation with a major record label
, Lavie performed at the 2008 "SPARKLE Freedom Celebration" Independence Day concert in Santa Barbara, California the Gibson Showcase in Beverly Hills, the "Women Taking Care of the World" concert in St. Petersburg, Florida,
and as one of the "YouTube Sensations" featured at an AEM
national conference. Lavie also performed for charity events, such as the televised Santa Barbara Christmas Telethon and the Festival du Bonheur (Happiness Festival) in her native province Québec.
By the end of its first year, as of March 2008 Lavie's main YouTube channel acquired about 13,500 subscribers, and total upload views numbered about 3.75 million. By the end of 2008, the first full calendar year after the ET
and eTalk
features, Lavie's YouTube account had over 35,000 subscribers, her YouTube videos collectively having 12.7 million views, 96,000 viewer comments, and having been "favorited" over 52,000 times; plays of Lavie's MySpace tracks numbered approximately 1.2 million. During calendar year 2009, subscribership grew to over 112,000, views to over 30 million, viewer comments to 186,000, and favorites to over 126,000, while a video was viewed, on average, every 1.8 seconds. By the end of 2010, Lavie's YouTube channel had over 212,000 subscribers, and on January 10, 2011, her channel's total upload views reached 50 million.
Four years in the making, Lavie's debut album Everything or Nothing was released on the iTunes
music download
website on May 13, 2008, being featured in the "What's Hot" section of the iTunes front page.
Concurrently with the album's iTunes release, YouTube's front page featured a video of Lavie singing the album's title track. Lavie's "Everything or Nothing" video received over 500,000 views in its first half-week.
The album reached as high as #20 on the iTunes pop
chart, and #70 on the iTunes overall music chart, at a time when Lavie had no backing or promotion by a record label
but about 20,000 YouTube subscribers. Two summers after the May 2008 release of Everything or Nothing, subscribers to Lavie's YouTube channel exceeded 183,000 (August 2010).
Lavie is credited as writing or co-writing all of the lyrics and melodies of Everything or Nothing, including solo songwriter/composer on three tracks. Lavie's metaphor: "I've been writing a soundtrack to my life, to my existence, to what I've been going through." Concerning the album's diversity of genres, Lavie explained "I've not created one particular style. ... It's kind of like seasons," further explaining that "most of my songs are about relationships. That's where, for some reason, I tend to get my creativity."
, she added that "I'm an independent artist. ... It would definitely have to be the right fit and I have not found the right fit up until this point so I'm just doing things on my own. ... I'm just going to concentrate on creating and building a fan base online."
Lavie also expanded her collaborations with other artists, including a singing role in a spoof of T.I.
's song Dead and Gone
, and a role impersonating television personality Kendra Wilkinson
in a series of spoofs of the "Kendra
" reality television series, both with YouTube personality and impressionist Iman Crosson
.
In February 2010, Lavie conceived, organized, performed in, and with Iman Crosson
, co-edited, the musical collaboration video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
" for charity relief of victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake
. Lavie's video, a collaboration of 57 unsigned
or independent
YouTube musicians, was a cover
of We Are the World
, produced in 1985 for African famine relief. Lavie's video was posted as a video response to the celebrity remake, We Are the World 25 for Haiti
, which had been released eight days before. Receiving its first half-million views on YouTube in two days, Lavie's video became the subject of worldwide media attention, including multiple features on CNN
, and a primetime news feature on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer in which the video's contributors were named ABC News
' "Persons of the Week" for the week ending March 19, 2010. Before the television feature, Lavie had explained to Sawyer
that she "thought it would be great to have regular people who sing, as well. I think it reaches people in a different way" than the celebrity remake. Lavie was characterized by USA Today
as a "visionary" behind the "phenom" YouTube video.
In early July 2010, MTV
's "MTVIggy" listed Lavie among the top ten people most likely to become "the next Justin Bieber
."
In July 2010, three days after performing at the Festival du Bonheur (Happiness Festival) charity event in Québec, Lavie appeared on CTV
's Canada AM
national news program. Canada AM
first recognized Lavie's collaborative video We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
and her YouTube channel's then forty million video views, before she performed her original song "Angel."
's official website introduced Lavie as one of two vocalists to accompany Yanni
and his orchestra, days before the opening of a South American tour to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Lavie continued with Yanni's tour stops in Puerto Rico (2010), and Mexico, Panama, Canada, and the U.S. (all early 2011). Lavie continued on Yanni's late-2011 tour of Eastern Europe and Asia.
Audition
s were said to be "the deciding factor" in Yanni's choosing the two vocalists, who together performed "Aria
" and "Niki Nana
" (translation: "We Are One").
During gaps in the Yanni tour schedule, Lavie's performances included events in Doha
, Qatar
and Bangkok, Thailand.
s, and how she proceeded with her career as an independent
artist: "I can no longer wait for this 'Major Label' to come along. I need to break the mold of how things were once done and find innovative ways of utilizing the Internet and other sources to get my music heard. ... I need to step up my game." "The labels are all scrambling to stay afloat of this new wave called the Internet. There are so many innovative ways of getting music out." Lavie explained her rise has been "strictly (by) word of mouth."
Lavie later explained that her Everything or Nothing album was named in part based on her refusal to compromise her artistic standards, that if a label
wanted to sign her it would have to accept her, everything or nothing. Still later, Lavie reaffirmed "Labels have been showing interest but until the right deal comes along and it's the perfect fit, I'm going to keep on doing my thing and creating my own destiny." Lavie said she has been courted by record companies, but that "It's a very tricky position to be in. If you go with a major label, (at) any time you could be shelved if the president or A&R person who signed you, leaves (the company)." She added that "a lot of record executives were trying to change my style. .... 'We want you to be more "ghetto."' But I'm not 'ghetto.'"
She explained that "success doesn’t come overnight. You have to work extremely hard to break through and even when you work really hard often times talent is only 10% of the equation, everything else has to line up just right to make things work."
Lavie characterizes her style as being R&B
or "Pop/R&B". Everything or Nothing was classified in the iTunes pop
genre.
In 2007 Lavie mentioned Mariah Carey
, Boyz II Men
& Brian McKnight
, to whom she listened while growing up, as being "definite influences on (her) music and vocal style," and more recently named Alicia Keys
, Mariah Carey
, Céline Dion
, Whitney Houston
and Lara Fabian
. She also said she considers Alicia Keys
"brilliant" and "feel(s) that our song-writing styles would mesh really well."
Lavie actively and personally manages her YouTube channels, and her pages on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.
Concerning the independent
promotion
possibilities of Internet websites such as YouTube
, Lavie explained "If I didn't have this platform, I'd probably scale back my dream a bit. There's no excuses anymore like 'I'm waiting around for a record label.' ... No: Do it yourself."
Lavie has said that part of her career motivation is to provide for her parents, whom she says always have been supportive of her pursuing her dream.
To inspire donations for relief of victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake
, in February 2010 Lavie conceived, organized, performed in, and co-edited, a charity musical collaboration video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
"
Lavie also performed in the May 9, 2011 charity collaboration video and single
, "We Pray for You (YouTubers Edition)" to benefit victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
(Japan) and 2011 tornado outbreak
(southern United States).
The "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)" collaboration followed her January 16, 2010 "Altar Call (Haiti)" solo singing video for Haiti relief.
Lavie performed at the Festival du Bonheur (Happiness Festival) in her native province Québec for the "Happy Well-Being Foundation" that "gives grants to encourage athletic projects, literature, organic agriculture and artists."
(p) Touchstone Pictures (on iTunes April 4, 2006)
The Guardian (Original Soundtrack)
(p) Hollywood Records (on iTunes September 12, 2006)
Everything or Nothing
(p) Boundary Entertainment (on iTunes May 13, 2008)
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Lavie is known for using the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
to independently
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
promote
Promotion (marketing)
Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix . It is the communication link between sellers and buyers for the purpose of influencing, informing, or persuading a potential buyer's purchasing decision....
her own music and concerts. Lavie's vocals have appeared on soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
s of major motion pictures, and her independently
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
debut album Everything or Nothing was released on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
in 2008.
Lavie has received national television coverage for her vocals, and for her production of the charity
Charity record
A charity record is a release of a song for a specific charitable cause. Some of the earliest charity records came from the Music for UNICEF Concert, with ABBA's Chiquitita and the Bee Gees' Too Much Heaven among them released as singles, with all the royalties going to UNICEF...
collaboration video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
"We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is a massively collaborative charity song and music video produced by Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake."We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is the...
." She was chosen as a vocalist for Yanni
Yanni
Yanni , born Yiannis Hrysomallis is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer who has spent most of his life in the United States.He earned Grammy nominations for his 1992 album, Dare to Dream, and the 1993 follow-up, In My Time...
's 2010-2011 tours of South, Central, and North America, and his late-2011 tour of Eastern Europe and Asia.
Childhood and discovery
Lavie won a singing part in a school variety show at age 10. Lavie's older brothers Michael, a hip hopHip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
dancer, and Danny, a disk jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
known around Montréal as DJ Devious, were her family musical inspirations. She said she listened devotedly to Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
.
By age 16 she toured Canada as a backup singer
Backing vocalist
A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
with the French-Canadian hip hop group Dubmatique
Dubmatique
Dubmatique are a Canadian hip hop group from Montreal. They were the first French language hip hop crew from Canada to break through to Canada's francophone pop charts...
, performing before thousands. Also at age 16, Lavie recorded a demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
CD. Meanwhile, Lavie worked on the fringes of the music industry, including co-owning and managing Harmony Karaoke
Karaoke
is a form of interactive entertainment or video game in which amateur singers sing along with recorded music using a microphone and public address system. The music is typically a well-known pop song minus the lead vocal. Lyrics are usually displayed on a video screen, along with a moving symbol,...
in Montréal in 2002.
In 2004 her demo CD reached songwriter-producer Ben Margulies
Ben Margulies
Ben Margulies is a songwriter and record producer. Together, he and Mariah Carey lobbied record companies with their 5 song demo tape with songs they had co-written and co-produced until Mariah got signed to Sony in 1988....
, a co-producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
of Mariah Carey's first album. Margulies was struck by what he called a "one in a million" voice: "It was like the first time I heard Mariah." Lavie initially thought Margulies' attempts to contact her were friends' hoaxes, playing on her childhood devotion to Carey.
After three months, Margulies and Lavie connected. After Lavie sang her original, "Guys Are All the Same" to Margulies over a cellphone from a Montréal shopping mall, Margulies responded: "I heard something really special in her voice... I said, fly out here right away." Lavie later wrote "I couldn't believe that Mariah Carey's producer had discovered me. From the age of 10 to 17, I don't think I even listened to anybody else. Her voice and melodies captured me." A planned three-day visit to Santa Barbara, California in July, 2004 evolved into a permanent move for the 21 year old Lavie.
Breaking into the business
Early on, producerRecord producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
Ben Margulies
Ben Margulies
Ben Margulies is a songwriter and record producer. Together, he and Mariah Carey lobbied record companies with their 5 song demo tape with songs they had co-written and co-produced until Mariah got signed to Sony in 1988....
expressed his estimation of Lavie's potential: "Lisa has an undeniably brilliant tone and a vocal quality that is beyond my ability to quantify. ... I've worked with a lot of great singers, and she's got that something extra, something special... everything it takes to be a superstar
Superstar
A superstar is a widely acclaimed celebrity.Superstar or superstars may also refer to:-People:* Warhol Superstar, associates of Andy Warhol* WWE Superstar, the term used to refer to entertainers from the WWE...
." Lavie developed her songwriting ability, her lyrics said to be based on her own life experiences. Lavie is listed as songwriter/composer on all songs of what was to become her first album, including solo songwriter/composer on three tracks.
Lavie placed songs on the soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
s of the 2006 motion pictures Stick It
Stick It
Stick It is an American teen comedy-drama film starring Jeff Bridges, Missy Peregrym, and Vanessa Lengies. It was written and directed by Jessica Bendinger, writer of Bring It On; the film marks her directorial debut...
starring Jeff Bridges (Lavie's original song "If I Only Knew") and The Guardian
The Guardian (2006 film)
The Guardian is a 2006 action-adventure drama film starring Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, and Melissa Sagemiller. The film was released on September 29, 2006, and was directed by Andrew Davis, director of The Fugitive...
starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher (Lavie's version of "Mockingbird").
In August, 2006, Lavie signed as a songwriter/publisher with the performing rights organization
Performance rights organisation
Performance rights organizations provide intermediary functions, particularly royalty collection, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works publicly such as shopping and dining venues. Legal consumer purchase of works, such as buying CDs from a music store, confer...
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI
Broadcast Music Incorporated
Broadcast Music, Inc. is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed...
), formalizing her entry into the profession. She was featured in the "Hitmakers" section of BMI MusicWorld Magazine in spring of 2007. Lavie "attend(ed) the 56th annual BMI Pop Awards at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on May 20, 2008 in Beverly Hills, California," and "attend(ed) the 2008 Spirit of Life Award dinner honoring Doug Morris on October 15, 2008 in Santa Monica, California."
Even after the movie soundtrack vocals, a career breakthrough remained elusive, relying on personal contacts and networking in media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
and record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
s. Lavie later characterized praises from industry executives as enthusiastic but non-committal, leading Lavie and Margulies to pursue independent
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
production of a first album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
.
Creating her own buzz
In March, 2007, Lavie opened an account on the video sharing website YouTubeYouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, loosely mirrored by her MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
page. She said she did not anticipate that her do-it-yourself video performances would advance her career: "I had no idea what to expect when I started uploading videos on YouTube." She initially posted non-studio videos of herself singing her own original songs, including two videos of her singing inside a car. Lavie said she responded personally to so many viewer comments that she said she developed carpal tunnel syndrome
Carpal tunnel syndrome
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is an entrapment idiopathic median neuropathy, causing paresthesia, pain, and other symptoms in the distribution of the median nerve due to its compression at the wrist in the carpal tunnel. The pathophysiology is not completely understood but can be considered compression...
requiring the wrist brace visible in her ET Canada
Entertainment Tonight Canada
Entertainment Tonight Canada is a daily entertainment newsmagazine show that airs primetime on Global Television in Canada. Encore presentations can also be found on the Slice and TVtropolis channels, both of which are part of the Shaw Media network...
interview.
Lavie's responses to viewers backfired on September 11, 2007. YouTube software interpreted her many replies to viewer comments as computer bot
Internet bot
Internet bots, also known as web robots, WWW robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone...
-generated spam
Spam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
, and automatically suspended her account. Her YouTube fans initiated an online petition campaign, and Lavie's YouTube account was reinstated two days after suspension.
Weeks after her channel's reinstatement, Lavie's studio performance of her original song "Angel" was featured on YouTube's "front page" and attracted over one million views within days. For days surrounding October 3, 2007—when the "Angel" video achieved its 1,000,000th view—Lavie continued to interact with viewers online. But past were the days in which she could attempt to respond to every viewer comment: the "Angel" video alone had registered 10,000 viewer comments when it crossed the 1,000,000 view threshold.
During the period of the "Angel" feature, Lavie's YouTube channel grew from under 4,000 subscribers (mid-September 2007) to about 8,000 subscribers (October 7, 2007), and, after ensuing television exposure in October and November, to over 11,000 subscribers (early December 2007). Total video views in the same periods grew from 188,000 to 1.79 million to about 3.3 million, respectively. In three and a half months, Lavie's YouTube channel rose from 74th to 34th most subscribed YouTube musician of all time.
Skeptical of the value of YouTube views alone, the Globe and Mail commented that Angels YouTube views put the video in "not what you'd call exalted company," noting that "an unsuspecting prairie dog whose five-second long glare at the camera became known as the Dramatic Chipmunk clip" had received three million views "in a matter of days." However, after describing "real" world accomplishments of YouTube "stars" Esmee Denters
Esmée Denters
Esmée Denters is a Dutch singer-songwriter. She was a regular cover-artist on video-sharing website YouTube on which she covered songs by contemporary musicians like Justin Timberlake and Natasha Bedingfield....
and Ysabella Brave
Ysabella Brave
Ysabella Brave is an American vocalist signed by Cordless Recordings, a division of the Warner Music Group. She was discovered through the popularity of her YouTube channels, ysabellabrave and ysabellabravetalk.-Videos:Ysabella Brave posted the first videos of herself singing on YouTube on July...
, the Globe and Mail article commented that "Lisa Lavie may have reason to expect big things."
By the time of the Globe and Mail commentary, Entertainment Tonight (ET) Canada
Entertainment Tonight Canada
Entertainment Tonight Canada is a daily entertainment newsmagazine show that airs primetime on Global Television in Canada. Encore presentations can also be found on the Slice and TVtropolis channels, both of which are part of the Shaw Media network...
had already dubbed Lavie an "Internet singing sensation" and "Internet phenomenon", quoting her new designation, "the next Mariah Carey." The following month, CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
's eTalk
ETalk
etalk is a Canadian entertainment news show hosted by Ben Mulroney and Tanya Kim. It airs weekdays weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, at 1:30 p.m. ET on CTV Two and at 6 p.m. ET and 11:30 p.m. ET on E!...
featured how "music stars" like Lavie would "get to the top on their own terms." In that televised phone interview, Lavie explained how in today's music business, to earn the confidence of skittish record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
s, artists themselves have to create their own buzz
Marketing buzz
Marketing buzz or simply buzz — a term used in word-of-mouth marketing — is the interaction of consumers and users of a product or service which serves to amplify the original marketing message. a vague but positive association, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service...
.
After this media exposure, Lavie continued to use Internet websites such as YouTube (mainly), but also MySpace, Facebook, BlogTV and Twitter, to propagate that buzz
Marketing buzz
Marketing buzz or simply buzz — a term used in word-of-mouth marketing — is the interaction of consumers and users of a product or service which serves to amplify the original marketing message. a vague but positive association, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service...
. She continued to work, personally, on her own promotion and communication with existing fans. The YouTube Partner Program, a revenue sharing arrangement allowing creators and producers of original content to earn money from their videos, accepted Lavie. In February 2008, Lavie was one of three YouTube musicians invited to perform at the "YouTube Event" in New York. In March, 2008, Lavie's video performance of her original song "Angel" was among six YouTube Awards
YouTube Awards
The YouTube Awards are awards given out as formalizedic or comedy genres, as voted by the YouTube community. The awards were organized in 2007 to "call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition"...
finalists among all of that website's music videos. In November 2008, Lavie performed at the San Francisco YouTube Live
YouTube Live
YouTube Live was a 2008 event streamed live on the Internet from San Francisco and Tokyo. It was hosted by a variety of YouTube celebrities, including The Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am, Tom Dickson of Will It Blend, Michael Buckley, The Happy Tree Friends, Fred, Smosh, Esmée Denters and singer...
event.
Continuing without affiliation with a major record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, Lavie performed at the 2008 "SPARKLE Freedom Celebration" Independence Day concert in Santa Barbara, California the Gibson Showcase in Beverly Hills, the "Women Taking Care of the World" concert in St. Petersburg, Florida,
and as one of the "YouTube Sensations" featured at an AEM
Association of Equipment Manufacturers
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers is a trade association for companies that manufacture equipment for industries such as agriculture, construction, mining, and utility. AEM is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.-Hall of fame:...
national conference. Lavie also performed for charity events, such as the televised Santa Barbara Christmas Telethon and the Festival du Bonheur (Happiness Festival) in her native province Québec.
By the end of its first year, as of March 2008 Lavie's main YouTube channel acquired about 13,500 subscribers, and total upload views numbered about 3.75 million. By the end of 2008, the first full calendar year after the ET
Entertainment Tonight Canada
Entertainment Tonight Canada is a daily entertainment newsmagazine show that airs primetime on Global Television in Canada. Encore presentations can also be found on the Slice and TVtropolis channels, both of which are part of the Shaw Media network...
and eTalk
ETalk
etalk is a Canadian entertainment news show hosted by Ben Mulroney and Tanya Kim. It airs weekdays weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, at 1:30 p.m. ET on CTV Two and at 6 p.m. ET and 11:30 p.m. ET on E!...
features, Lavie's YouTube account had over 35,000 subscribers, her YouTube videos collectively having 12.7 million views, 96,000 viewer comments, and having been "favorited" over 52,000 times; plays of Lavie's MySpace tracks numbered approximately 1.2 million. During calendar year 2009, subscribership grew to over 112,000, views to over 30 million, viewer comments to 186,000, and favorites to over 126,000, while a video was viewed, on average, every 1.8 seconds. By the end of 2010, Lavie's YouTube channel had over 212,000 subscribers, and on January 10, 2011, her channel's total upload views reached 50 million.
Debut album -- Everything or Nothing
Four years in the making, Lavie's debut album Everything or Nothing was released on the iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
music download
Uploading and downloading
In computer networks, to download means to receive data to a local system from a remote system, or to initiate such a data transfer. Examples of a remote system from which a download might be performed include a webserver, FTP server, email server, or other similar systems...
website on May 13, 2008, being featured in the "What's Hot" section of the iTunes front page.
Concurrently with the album's iTunes release, YouTube's front page featured a video of Lavie singing the album's title track. Lavie's "Everything or Nothing" video received over 500,000 views in its first half-week.
The album reached as high as #20 on the iTunes pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
chart, and #70 on the iTunes overall music chart, at a time when Lavie had no backing or promotion by a record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
but about 20,000 YouTube subscribers. Two summers after the May 2008 release of Everything or Nothing, subscribers to Lavie's YouTube channel exceeded 183,000 (August 2010).
Lavie is credited as writing or co-writing all of the lyrics and melodies of Everything or Nothing, including solo songwriter/composer on three tracks. Lavie's metaphor: "I've been writing a soundtrack to my life, to my existence, to what I've been going through." Concerning the album's diversity of genres, Lavie explained "I've not created one particular style. ... It's kind of like seasons," further explaining that "most of my songs are about relationships. That's where, for some reason, I tend to get my creativity."
Independent artist
In an interview published in March 2010, Lavie explained "I'm no longer working with the guy that I once worked with, so that's a nice change for me, a nice change of pace, and things are exciting." Concerning affiliation with a record labelRecord label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, she added that "I'm an independent artist. ... It would definitely have to be the right fit and I have not found the right fit up until this point so I'm just doing things on my own. ... I'm just going to concentrate on creating and building a fan base online."
Lavie also expanded her collaborations with other artists, including a singing role in a spoof of T.I.
T.I.
Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. , better known by his stage name T.I., is an American rap artist, film and music producer, actor and author. He is also the founder and co-chief executive officer of Grand Hustle Records....
's song Dead and Gone
Dead and Gone
-Remixes:*"Things Gotta Change" - Avery Storm*"When We Rock" - Bone Thugs-n-Harmony*"I Don't Like White People" - Rucka Rucka Ali-Cover versions:...
, and a role impersonating television personality Kendra Wilkinson
Kendra Wilkinson
Kendra Leigh Baskett , professionally known by her maiden name, is an American television personality and glamour model...
in a series of spoofs of the "Kendra
Kendra (TV series)
Kendra is an American reality-based television series that debuted on E! on June 7, 2009. The program details model - and former girlfriend of Playboy owner Hugh Hefner - Kendra Wilkinson's life after moving out of the Playboy Mansion, including her engagement and marriage to football player Hank...
" reality television series, both with YouTube personality and impressionist Iman Crosson
Iman Crosson
Iman Crosson is an American actor, impressionist, dancer and singer known on various Internet websites under the pseudonym "Alphacat" and is known for his impersonations of U.S...
.
In February 2010, Lavie conceived, organized, performed in, and with Iman Crosson
Iman Crosson
Iman Crosson is an American actor, impressionist, dancer and singer known on various Internet websites under the pseudonym "Alphacat" and is known for his impersonations of U.S...
, co-edited, the musical collaboration video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
"We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is a massively collaborative charity song and music video produced by Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake."We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is the...
" for charity relief of victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake
2010 Haiti earthquake
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...
. Lavie's video, a collaboration of 57 unsigned
Unsigned artist
The term "unsigned artist" or "independent artist" is used in the music industry as a marketing technique.-History and current scene:Many unsigned artists used to sell their music and music-related merchandise without the financial support of a record label, while often seeking a recording contract...
or independent
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
YouTube musicians, was a cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of We Are the World
We Are the World
"We Are the World" is a song and charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World...
, produced in 1985 for African famine relief. Lavie's video was posted as a video response to the celebrity remake, We Are the World 25 for Haiti
We Are the World 25 for Haiti
"We Are the World 25 for Haiti" is a charity single recorded by the supergroup Artists for Haiti in 2010. It is a remake of the 1985 hit song "We Are the World", which was written by American musicians Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and was recorded by USA for Africa to benefit famine relief in...
, which had been released eight days before. Receiving its first half-million views on YouTube in two days, Lavie's video became the subject of worldwide media attention, including multiple features on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, and a primetime news feature on ABC World News with Diane Sawyer in which the video's contributors were named ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
' "Persons of the Week" for the week ending March 19, 2010. Before the television feature, Lavie had explained to Sawyer
Diane Sawyer
Lila Diane Sawyer is the current anchor of ABC News' flagship program, ABC World News. Previously, Sawyer had been co-anchor of ABC Newss morning news program, Good Morning America ....
that she "thought it would be great to have regular people who sing, as well. I think it reaches people in a different way" than the celebrity remake. Lavie was characterized by USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
as a "visionary" behind the "phenom" YouTube video.
In early July 2010, MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
's "MTVIggy" listed Lavie among the top ten people most likely to become "the next Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber
Justin Drew Bieber is a Canadian pop/R&B singer, songwriter and actor. Bieber was discovered in 2008 by Scooter Braun, who came across Bieber's videos on YouTube and later became his manager...
."
In July 2010, three days after performing at the Festival du Bonheur (Happiness Festival) charity event in Québec, Lavie appeared on CTV
CTV television network
CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
's Canada AM
Canada AM
Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
national news program. Canada AM
Canada AM
Canada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
first recognized Lavie's collaborative video We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
"We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is a massively collaborative charity song and music video produced by Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake."We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is the...
and her YouTube channel's then forty million video views, before she performed her original song "Angel."
On tour
On September 13, 2010, YanniYanni
Yanni , born Yiannis Hrysomallis is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer who has spent most of his life in the United States.He earned Grammy nominations for his 1992 album, Dare to Dream, and the 1993 follow-up, In My Time...
's official website introduced Lavie as one of two vocalists to accompany Yanni
Yanni
Yanni , born Yiannis Hrysomallis is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer who has spent most of his life in the United States.He earned Grammy nominations for his 1992 album, Dare to Dream, and the 1993 follow-up, In My Time...
and his orchestra, days before the opening of a South American tour to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil. Lavie continued with Yanni's tour stops in Puerto Rico (2010), and Mexico, Panama, Canada, and the U.S. (all early 2011). Lavie continued on Yanni's late-2011 tour of Eastern Europe and Asia.
Audition
Audition
An audition is a sample performance by an actor, singer, musician, dancer or other performing artist.Audition may also refer to:* The sense of hearing* Adobe Audition, audio editing software...
s were said to be "the deciding factor" in Yanni's choosing the two vocalists, who together performed "Aria
Dare to Dream (Yanni album)
Dare to Dream is Yanni's eighth album, released on the Private Music label in 1992 . The album peaked at #2 on Billboard's "Top New Age Albums" chart and at #32 on the "Billboard 200" chart in the same year...
" and "Niki Nana
Niki Nana
Niki Nana, is Yanni's fifth album, released on the Private Music label in 1989, . It peaked at #2 on Billboard's "Top New Age Albums" chart in the same year.The liner notes dedicate the album to his father and mother respectively:...
" (translation: "We Are One").
During gaps in the Yanni tour schedule, Lavie's performances included events in Doha
Doha
Doha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
and Bangkok, Thailand.
Performances and interviews
- Entertainment Tonight Canada national television feature (in-person interview in Los Angeles), October 24, 2007.
- eTalk, CTV Canadian national television feature (interview), November 22, 2007.
- Finalist (music category, her song "Angel"), 2007 YouTube AwardsYouTube AwardsThe YouTube Awards are awards given out as formalizedic or comedy genres, as voted by the YouTube community. The awards were organized in 2007 to "call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition"...
, March 2008.
- "SPARKLE Freedom Celebration" concert in Santa Barbara, California (vocal performance), July 4, 2008.
- "YouTube LiveYouTube LiveYouTube Live was a 2008 event streamed live on the Internet from San Francisco and Tokyo. It was hosted by a variety of YouTube celebrities, including The Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am, Tom Dickson of Will It Blend, Michael Buckley, The Happy Tree Friends, Fred, Smosh, Esmée Denters and singer...
", San Francisco (vocal performance), November 22, 2008.
- Gibson Showcase, Beverly Hills, California (vocal performance), December 10, 2008.
- Santa Barbara, California's 22nd Annual Christmas Telethon (vocal performance), televised on KCOY 12 (CBS) and Cox 8, December 2008.
- "Women Taking Care of the World" concert, Mahaffey Theater, St. Petersburg, Florida (vocal performance), October 3, 2009.
- "YouTube Sensations," annual conference of the AEMAssociation of Equipment ManufacturersThe Association of Equipment Manufacturers is a trade association for companies that manufacture equipment for industries such as agriculture, construction, mining, and utility. AEM is based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.-Hall of fame:...
, Hollywood, Florida (vocal performances, solo and ensemble), November 15–17, 2009.
- CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, television features for Lavie's collaborativeCollaborationCollaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
viral videoViral videoA viral video is one that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and email...
"We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)"We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is a massively collaborative charity song and music video produced by Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake."We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is the...
" (televised SkypeSkypeSkype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
interview), March 6–7, 2010.
- ABC World News with Diane Sawyer (primetime news feature) Lavie and other participants of "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)"We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is a massively collaborative charity song and music video produced by Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake."We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is the...
" charity video were SkypeSkypeSkype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
-interviewed and collectively named ABC NewsABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
' "Persons of the Week," March 19, 2010.
- Selected for "My YouTube Story" feature on the website's fifth anniversary (interview), May 13, 2010.
- CTVCTV television networkCTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...
's Canada AMCanada AMCanada AM is a Canadian breakfast television news show, which has aired on the CTV Television Network since 1972. It is currently hosted by Beverly Thomson and Seamus O'Regan, with Marci Ien reporting from the headline news desk and Jeff Hutcheson presenting the weather forecast and sports...
national television news program (vocal performance), July 13, 2010.
- YanniYanniYanni , born Yiannis Hrysomallis is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer who has spent most of his life in the United States.He earned Grammy nominations for his 1992 album, Dare to Dream, and the 1993 follow-up, In My Time...
's tour of South, Central and North America (vocal performances), autumn 2010 through spring 2011.
- Chef Gordon RamsayGordon RamsayGordon James Ramsay, OBE is a Scottish chef, television personality and restaurateur. He has been awarded 13 Michelin stars....
's Maze (restaurant) at The Pearl-Qatar, DohaDohaDoha is the capital city of the state of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf, it had a population of 998,651 in 2008, and is also one of the municipalities of Qatar...
, QatarQatarQatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
, first anniversary celebration (vocal performances), March 9–13, 2011.
- ThailandThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
Festival, Ratchamongkol Pavilion in Bangkok, Thailand (vocal performances), June 4–5, 2011.
- YanniYanniYanni , born Yiannis Hrysomallis is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer who has spent most of his life in the United States.He earned Grammy nominations for his 1992 album, Dare to Dream, and the 1993 follow-up, In My Time...
's tour of Eastern Europe and Asia (vocal performances), late 2011.
Artistry and influences
In her MySpace blog, February 19, 2008, three months before her iTunes debut, Lavie described the trials and frustrations of trying to be recognized by record labelRecord label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
s, and how she proceeded with her career as an independent
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
artist: "I can no longer wait for this 'Major Label' to come along. I need to break the mold of how things were once done and find innovative ways of utilizing the Internet and other sources to get my music heard. ... I need to step up my game." "The labels are all scrambling to stay afloat of this new wave called the Internet. There are so many innovative ways of getting music out." Lavie explained her rise has been "strictly (by) word of mouth."
Lavie later explained that her Everything or Nothing album was named in part based on her refusal to compromise her artistic standards, that if a label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
wanted to sign her it would have to accept her, everything or nothing. Still later, Lavie reaffirmed "Labels have been showing interest but until the right deal comes along and it's the perfect fit, I'm going to keep on doing my thing and creating my own destiny." Lavie said she has been courted by record companies, but that "It's a very tricky position to be in. If you go with a major label, (at) any time you could be shelved if the president or A&R person who signed you, leaves (the company)." She added that "a lot of record executives were trying to change my style. .... 'We want you to be more "ghetto."' But I'm not 'ghetto.'"
She explained that "success doesn’t come overnight. You have to work extremely hard to break through and even when you work really hard often times talent is only 10% of the equation, everything else has to line up just right to make things work."
Lavie characterizes her style as being R&B
Contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, soul, R&B and funk.Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating after the demise of disco in...
or "Pop/R&B". Everything or Nothing was classified in the iTunes pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
genre.
In 2007 Lavie mentioned Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
, Boyz II Men
Boyz II Men
Boyz II Men is an American R&B vocal group best known for emotional ballads and a cappella harmonies. They are the most successful R&B group of all time, having sold more than albums worldwide. In the 1990s, Boyz II Men found fame on Motown Records as a quartet, but original member Michael McCary...
& Brian McKnight
Brian McKnight
Brian McKnight is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, producer, and R&B/Pop musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays nine instruments: piano, guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussions, trombone, tuba, flugelhorn and trumpet....
, to whom she listened while growing up, as being "definite influences on (her) music and vocal style," and more recently named Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys
Alicia Augello Cook , better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano...
, Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
, Céline Dion
Celine Dion
Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...
, Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston is an American singer, actress, producer and a former model. Houston is the most awarded female act of all time, according to Guinness World Records, and her list of awards include 1 Emmy Award, 6 Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards, among...
and Lara Fabian
Lara Fabian
Lara Fabian is a Belgian-Italian international singer who also holds Canadian citizenship. Multilingual, she sings in French, Italian and English....
. She also said she considers Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys
Alicia Augello Cook , better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano...
"brilliant" and "feel(s) that our song-writing styles would mesh really well."
Lavie actively and personally manages her YouTube channels, and her pages on MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter.
Concerning the independent
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
promotion
Promotion (marketing)
Promotion is one of the four elements of marketing mix . It is the communication link between sellers and buyers for the purpose of influencing, informing, or persuading a potential buyer's purchasing decision....
possibilities of Internet websites such as YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, Lavie explained "If I didn't have this platform, I'd probably scale back my dream a bit. There's no excuses anymore like 'I'm waiting around for a record label.' ... No: Do it yourself."
Lavie has said that part of her career motivation is to provide for her parents, whom she says always have been supportive of her pursuing her dream.
Philanthropy and other activities
In October 2009, Lavie headlined a concert at the "Women Taking Care of the World" event of the International Association of Moxy Women.To inspire donations for relief of victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake
2010 Haiti earthquake
The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre near the town of Léogâne, approximately west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time on Tuesday, 12 January 2010.By 24 January, at least 52 aftershocks...
, in February 2010 Lavie conceived, organized, performed in, and co-edited, a charity musical collaboration video "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)
"We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is a massively collaborative charity song and music video produced by Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake."We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is the...
"
Lavie also performed in the May 9, 2011 charity collaboration video and single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
, "We Pray for You (YouTubers Edition)" to benefit victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...
(Japan) and 2011 tornado outbreak
Tornadoes of 2011
This page documents the tornadoes and tornado outbreaks of 2011. Extremely destructive tornadoes form most frequently in the U.S., Bangladesh and Eastern India, but they can occur almost anywhere under the right conditions...
(southern United States).
The "We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)" collaboration followed her January 16, 2010 "Altar Call (Haiti)" solo singing video for Haiti relief.
Lavie performed at the Festival du Bonheur (Happiness Festival) in her native province Québec for the "Happy Well-Being Foundation" that "gives grants to encourage athletic projects, literature, organic agriculture and artists."
Discography
Stick It (Original Soundtrack)(p) Touchstone Pictures (on iTunes April 4, 2006)
7. If I Only Knew
The Guardian (Original Soundtrack)
(p) Hollywood Records (on iTunes September 12, 2006)
5. The Mockingbird
Everything or Nothing
(p) Boundary Entertainment (on iTunes May 13, 2008)
- Save Your Breath
- Maple Leafs
- You Walked Away
- Everything Or Nothing
- I Remember When
- Angel
- Interlude
- Falling For You
- I See You Staring
- If I Only Knew
- Find Me An Angel
- Can't Sleep At Night
- Only Heaven Will Know
See also
- List of YouTube personalities
- We Are the World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)We Are The World 25 for Haiti (YouTube Edition)"We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is a massively collaborative charity song and music video produced by Canadian singer-songwriter Lisa Lavie and posted to the YouTube video sharing website to raise money for victims of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake."We Are The World 25 for Haiti " is the...
- YanniYanniYanni , born Yiannis Hrysomallis is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer who has spent most of his life in the United States.He earned Grammy nominations for his 1992 album, Dare to Dream, and the 1993 follow-up, In My Time...
- Broadcast Music IncorporatedBroadcast Music IncorporatedBroadcast Music, Inc. is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed...
- YouTube AwardsYouTube AwardsThe YouTube Awards are awards given out as formalizedic or comedy genres, as voted by the YouTube community. The awards were organized in 2007 to "call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition"...
- YouTube LiveYouTube LiveYouTube Live was a 2008 event streamed live on the Internet from San Francisco and Tokyo. It was hosted by a variety of YouTube celebrities, including The Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am, Tom Dickson of Will It Blend, Michael Buckley, The Happy Tree Friends, Fred, Smosh, Esmée Denters and singer...
- Social impact of YouTubeSocial impact of YouTubeYouTube, by providing a video hosting service, has been involved with popularizing Internet trends in popular culture. Its users represent of society and it is part of a set of social networking sites that people and organizations often maintain a presence on. YouTube has created some internet...
External links
(mainly music videos)- Lisa Lavie on FacebookFacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
(for blog videos, video responses, etc.) (shared with actorActorAn actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
-impressionistImpressionist (entertainment)An impressionist or a mimic is a performer whose act consists of imitating the voice and mannerisms of others. The word usually refers to a professional comedian/entertainer who specializes in such performances and has developed a wide repertoire of impressions, including adding to them, often to...
Iman CrossonIman CrossonIman Crosson is an American actor, impressionist, dancer and singer known on various Internet websites under the pseudonym "Alphacat" and is known for his impersonations of U.S...
). - Lisa Lavie on TwitterTwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...