Video Spotlight: Sam Tsui

I first found out about Sam Tsui from a collaboration that he did with one of my favorite male singers, Peter Hollens. As it turned out, some of my friends are also fans of Sam's and there was a point where I kept seeing people post some of his videos. So finally I decided to go check out his YouTube channel. Turns out, he has all kinds of great covers on there and even some originals. I liked him and knew it was only a mattered of time before I wrote about him. 

The only trouble was picking which video to write about first. There were a bunch of strong contenders and it's safe to assume that all of those will get a spotlight at some point down the road. But it was hard to pick. The obvious solution was just to do a video spotlight on Sam himself.

We'll be talking about five of his videos. Starting with the first one I saw.


1) The Ed Sheeran Medley featuring Peter Hollens. 

I've learned that when you like a singer - in this case Peter Hollens for me - and they do a collaboration with another person, than odds are that you're going to end up liking that person too. It doesn't always work out that way, but for me most of the time it does. This is an a cappella medley comprised of Ed Sheeran songs. I think that Peter and Sam's voices complement each other's so nicely! It's a very pleasant combination to me. I didn't know all of the songs in the medley, but that didn't matter. I thought this was so well done. Considering how many songs are included in this, it could have been a big mess of sounds but it wasn't. It worked for me. Interesting video as well. 

2) The "Let It Go / Let Her Go" mashup. 

The Ed Sheeran medley is what got me interested in Sam initially, but this mashup is what got me hooked. These two songs are pretty different, stylistically. You have "Let It Go" which is a Disney power ballad and then "Let Her Go"  by Passenger which is, well, not. For me, the best mashups are the ones where it feels like the songs used were always meant to be put together. This gets harder depending on how different the songs are from each other. I never would've imagined that these two songs could fit together so well, but they do. It's a great vocal from Sam too. This is easily one of my favorite things he's done. I love it. 

3) "Shape of You" featuring Jason Pitts on guitar. 

For some reason I've been listening to this cover a bunch lately. I know I'm not the only one that happens to. A particular song will just catch your attention and not let it go for a while. If I like the song - which I do, in this case - I don't mind it. It's when it's a song you don't care for when it becomes a problem. I digress. This cover falls under the category of songs I can't listen to while staying still. I always end up dancing along. Which, as I've said before about other songs in this category, isn't exactly conducive to trying to type. But hey, I figure it's a way to burn a few extra calories, so why not go with it? May as well since I evidently don't have a choice. It's infectious, I tell you.


4) "Love Can Go To Hell" featuring Brandy Clark. 

If you've never heard of Brandy Clark, she is a country artist with a great voice. She's also a wonderful songwriter. She wrote "Love Can Go To Hell" with Scott Stepakoff. This song has been recorded by multiple artists and it's no wonder. I have a few versions of them. Right after watching this video, I decided to go back and listen to Brandy's version which is found on her album Big Day in a Small Town. I strongly recommend checking out that album if you haven't already because it's wonderful. 

Brandy's version is a little more upbeat, musically speaking. Whereas Brandy and Sam made it more of a ballad. I love the arrangement; it's beautiful. The instrumentation is absolutely lovely. The highlight of this, however, is the way that Brandy and Sam sound together. Her voice is so rich and full and his is lighter and clearer, I guess. It makes for a very nice contrast. The song works well as a duet and  I enjoyed the way they played off of each other.


5) The 2016 Pop Medley with Kurt Hugo Schneider. 

Skimming through Sam's YouTube channel, this is one of many videos that involve Kurt. The two of them work so well together. They've done pop medleys like this for the last few years and so I knew that I needed to feature one of them. I decided to go with this one since it was the first one of these that I watched. I'll say this: watching this confirmed how out of touch I am with mainstream pop music. I knew some of these songs, but not a bunch of them. Not that that kept me from enjoying this because I liked it a lot. As you noticed, they combined this with the mannequin challenge from last year which only seemed appropriate. It made for a cool video. The medley itself is so catchy. They did a great job with this one. I'd definitely recommend checking out the others. 

If this was your introduction to Sam Tsui, I hope its inspired you to go see what else he has on his channel. There's a lot of good stuff on there! It was tough to narrow it down to five. And if you're already a fan of Sam's, I hope this felt like a good list. If there's any of his other videos that you think deserve to be spotlighted at some point, please let me know in the comments. Or on twitter @countrymusicatk. For that matter if there's any videos you think deserve a spotlight, tell me. It doesn't matter if that person or group has ever been featured on here or not. I always enjoy discovering new acts. 

Thanks for reading!

Here's where you can keep up with Sam:
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube

The YouTube Channels of each of his collaborators:
Peter Hollens
Jason Pitts
Brandy Clark
Kurt Hugo Schneider