Taking Over YouTube One Song at a Time
YouTube user Julia Nunes plays the ukulele and harmonizes with herself on covers of pop music by artists including Ben Folds, The Beatles, Weezer, Say Anything..., Kanye West and Destiny's Child. Most often a Self-Backing Vocalist she has made her way in the music industry completely through sheer talent and self promotion. Also has a legion of adoring fans.
Tropes used in Julia Nunes' songs include:
- Album Title Drop: "Fair Weather" from Settle Down:And they say 'Julia, just settle down,There's room for the new girl in town'.
- The Cover Changes the Gender: Averted in her version of 3 Oh! 3's "Don't Trust Me" - there'd have to be a lot of lyrical changes to make the gender switch work anyway. And several others, such as "Build Me Up Buttercup" and "Mr. Brightside".
- Genki Girl: She can seem a bit hyper in her vlogs and outtakes.
- Hilarious Outtakes: Sometimes appended to the end of her youtube videos.
- Jerkass: Apparently most of her ex-boyfriends were this, if her music is anything to go off of.
- Lyrical Dissonance: "Odd" for starters, there are many more.
- Meaningful Name: The popularization of the ukulele is attributed in part to Manuel Nunes (also Nunes rhymes with "tunes").
- Miniscule Rocking: The album Settle Down includes three "vignettes" - "He Is Mad" and "I Wasn't Worried" are both just shy of a minute, while "Pizza" is a mere 23 seconds.
- The Napoleon: Averted, she may be short, but she appears to be very comfortable with it, and frequently plays off of/makes joke around her lack of vertical growth.
- New Sound Album: The Ughwow EP had a more beat-heavy r and b/hip-hop influenced production style than her previous albums, and it was then followed by a series of non-album singles in that same vein.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: She prefers playing barefoot whenever possible, although often concert venues insist she wear shoes for safety reasons. She even appeared barefoot as a musical guest on Conan.
- Rearrange the Song:
- Settle Down includes a handful of re-recorded songs from her earlier albums. Usually, these rearrangements add more instrumentation to songs that originally just featured ukulele or guitar and vocals. "Comatose" already had a very similar full band recording released, but the Settle Down version adds a slower, more dramatic introduction.
- "August 2020" is a more electronic remake of her earlier song "August".
- Scatting: "Into The Sunshine" has a repeated section where the lyrics are just "ba ba ba".
- Self-Backing Vocalist:
- Over 90% of the videos on her youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/jaaaaaaa
- Most of the time this is true on the album versions of her songs. Settle Down has several songs that prominently feature harmonies by groups of actual backup singers though - she's said that this was inspired by all the singing along that her live audiences do.
- Over 90% of the videos on her youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/jaaaaaaa
- Sunny Sunflower Disposition: Fittingly matching her page image.
- When She Smiles: Much like another famous Julia, she has a radiant smile that transforms her face.
