Lest anyone think that posting home-made cover versions on YouTube is a rapid route to superstardom, check out the slow-motion trajectory of 22-year-old Sarah Close.
The Isle of Wight singer’s collection of covers on her YouTube channel stretches all the way back to 2010 – over 150 of them – while her clip titled “I signed a record deal” is from just two months ago.
She’s done all the big hits in her high, sweet voice, from Ed to Taylor – a lo-fi, one woman Now That’s What I Call Music compilation on keyboards, with polaroids and a rumpled duvet in the background. Her interpretations regularly earn well over a million views, and are currently outperforming the originals from her debut EP, Caught Up.
The lead song, Call Me Out, does the mellow electropop sound of the moment well, while its video provides a welcome opportunity for her to move on from all those self-shot close-ups and run around a mansion.
Now there’s another single, Only You, out next week, she can meet some of those online fans in real life at a headline show at Heaven at the end of this month, and in a nice closing of the circle, a few young girls have started filming cover versions of her.
Sept 28, Heaven, WC2 (0844 847 2351, heaven-live.co.uk)