Randomnies: Greyson Chance - 13-year-old YouTube sensation

Greyson Chance. Photo: greyson-official.com

Greyson Michael Chance is an American singer, songwriter and pianist whose April 2010 performance of Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" at a sixth-grade music festival became a hit onYouTube. As of June 15, 2010, his cover for the song "Paparazzi" has a total viewership of over 30 million. He has two original compositions, "Stars", and "Broken Hearts", both posted on his YouTube channel which have 4 and 5 million views respectively. His debut single, "Waiting Outside the Lines," was released in October 2010.

Greyson Chance performing "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga at Edmond's Sixth Grade Festival.

Personal life

Greyson Chance was born on August 16, 1997 in Wichita Falls, Texas and now resides in Edmond, Oklahoma. In May 2010, he completed his 6th grade year at Cheyenne Middle School in Edmond, Oklahoma for the school year 2009-2010.He is now currently doing school online. He is the youngest child of Scott and Lisa Chance. He has a 16-year-old sister, Alexa, and a 19-year-old brother, Tanner, both of whom also play music. Chance has had three years of piano lessons, but no formal vocal training.

Appearances

Chance's "Paparazzi" cover video was posted to YouTube on April 28, 2010, and for almost two weeks the video generated low views. At least two social websites, GossipBoy.ca and reddit.com, posted video embeds on May 10, 2010. Ellen DeGeneres first saw the video after Chance's brother, Tanner Chance, wrote to her show suggesting she watch it. The video had about 10,000 views when DeGeneres first saw it; while explaining her reasons for naming her new record label "eleveneleven", she listed as one reason the fact that she first saw Chance's Paparazzi cover on May 11, 2010. Also, she states that 11 is Greyson's soccer jersey number. On the afternoon of May 11, Yahoo! Music reported: "As of this writing, the video has gotten more than 36,000 views so far, and he's even been invited to perform on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show".

Greyson Chance: At the studio all night! Making some music!
Photo: greyson-official.com

On May 12, 2010 Greyson Chance taped an interview and performance of "Paparazzi" for Ellen in Los Angeles. It was broadcast on May 13. During the interview, Chance received a phone call from Lady Gaga, who the youth says is his "true inspiration." This first appearance on Ellen was followed by a second appearance on the show, airing May 26, 2010, on which Chance performed his original song "Broken Hearts," received a $10,000.00 award for winning Ellen's Wonderful Web of Wonderment contest, a brand new Yamaha piano, and was announced as DeGeneres's first signed artist to her new recording label eleveneleven. Chance now has many fans on online social sites such as Facebook and Twitter. He is the 30th most subscribed musician of all time on Youtube, with a 220,000+ strong subscriber base, as of August 17, 2010. Greyson Chance also appeared at We Day (also known as Me to We Day 2010) in downtown Toronto at the Air Canada Center. He performed Fire by Augustana.

Greyson Chance visits Canada.