Sam Smith

Pop singer Sam Smith has been named the winner of the BBC's Sound of 2014, which highlights the best new artists for the year ahead.

The list was compiled using tips from 170 UK-based critics, broadcasters and bloggers, and previous winners include Adele, Ellie Goulding and Jessie J.

"I'm completely speechless," said the 21-year-old from Cambridgeshire. "It's a huge compliment to be recognised by the industry and the BBC in this way.

"I really didn't expect it."

Smith got his big break in 2012, as the featured vocalist on Latch, by Mercury-nominated dance act Disclosure.

The single spent 15 weeks in the UK top 40, peaking at number 11 - but his next song climbed even higher.

La La La, a collaboration with British producer Naughty Boy, went to number one and became the fifth biggest-selling single of 2013.

The station's head of music, George Ergatoudis said: "Sam Smith is blessed with a distinctive mellifluous voice that imbues his lyrics with real emotion and soul.

"The public are looking for authentic artists with genuine talent and Sam more than fits the bill. He is going to enjoy huge success this year."

Smith has also been named the winner of the Critics' Choice award by the Brits, and will pick up his trophy at the ceremony on 19 February.

ranging from magazine editors and newspaper critics to influential bloggers, DJs and radio and TV producers.

Each was asked to name their favourite three new acts - rather than the ones they thought would be commercially successful.

They were free to choose performers from any country and any musical genre.

Artists who had scored a UK top 20 single or album before 11 November 2012 were ineligible, as were those already well-known to the UK public - for example by featuring in the final stages of a TV talent show or already being a member of a successful band.

However, this has been criticized by Neil McCormick...

The idea that Sam Smith deserves to be hailed as “The sound of 2014” is risible, unless all we want from pop music is more of the same, another fluid honey-toned voice sprinkling melodious Americanised soul licks over blends of digital beats concocted by laptop production teams.

Smith was announced as winner of the BBC’s Sound of 2014 poll, having already been selected for the Brits Critic Choice Award. So that’s it, apparently. The future has been decided by the great and good of the music industry and all the rest of the young wannabes can go home now. Unless it strikes anyone as odd that an artist being hailed as the next big thing has already scored a massive number one single.

Carly Rae Jepsen

The story of how Carly Rae Jepsen made it big is a well-known one. Phenom Justin Bieber heard her song, “Call Me Maybe,” on the radio while home in Canada and signed her to his label shortly thereafter.

But not everyone has heard the story straight from Jepsen herself.

“I remember getting a hysterical phone call from my younger sister Katie who was like, ‘Justin Bieber! He tweeted your song!,’” she recalls in the clip. “I was like ‘Calm down, what’s going on?’ and I went and checked it out and she was right - he had.”

“’Call Me Maybe’ had been playing on the radio for a little bit at this point,” she continued. “It had been mingling in the top 11 on iTunes within Canada and it had no life anywhere else. And Justin comes home and tweets about it and within a day it’s at No. 1 and that really was my big break.”

The video went viral, scoring one million views in 24 hours. Now that number is more than 40 million (and counting).

Two days after the video posted, Jepsen finally met Bieber at a recording studio in LA, where the pop idol had yet another surprise in store.

“We spent some time talking and hearing songs from his new album, and on the fourth song he’s like, ‘Do you like this song? If you like it, I was thinking maybe you would wanna sing on it.’”

Half an hour after they met, Jepsen was in a recording booth, unexpectedly laying down vocals for Justin Bieber’s new album as he and his entourage looked on — at least at first.

“He’d already recorded his part, so I was harmonizing with his parts,” says Jepsen, who is sworn to secrecy about the song’s details, including the title. “He was there for parts of it, [but] at one point they left the room, because I’m sure they could sense I was nervous.”

Since then, Jepsen’s life has gone bonkers, as “Call Me Maybe” has become an unstoppable Internet force. 

Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber is arguably the biggest pop star ever launched by YouTube.

The Canadian singer was catapulted from anonymity to superstardom in three years. Living in Stratford, Ontario, at the tender age of 13 he competed in "Stratford Idol" and posted the videos on YouTube. Ten million views later, he was signed by Usher. Following a breakthrough single, "One Time," with his debut release of "My World", Bieber had topped 100 million YouTube views.

On Twitter, the ultimate real-time metric of celebrity success moment by moment, Bieber's name was tweet-checked 84,846 times in one day. He occupies a solid holding pattern on Twitter's "Trending Topics" list.

Bieber set a recent record of 1,854,917 song plays in twenty-four hours. He has remained No.1 in Ad Age's "Top 10 Most Tweeted Brands" chart, other than a brief second place to the Oscars. MuchMusic named Bieber newcomer of the year and Celebuzz has declared him one of the decade's Top Ten YouTube superstars.

Justin Bieber is reaching way down the food chain to the littlest fruits - as evidenced by a viral video making the rounds: "3 Year Old Crying Over Justin Bieber," shot by the girl's mother and available on, of course, YouTube. Cody, the three year old girl, was subsequently booked on the Jimmy Kimmel show where she met the object of her affections. 

The roles of both Justin's mother - who uploaded his first videos when he was 13, and Cody's mother, are to be noted - at best. Have 'American Idol' and YouTube convinced us all that anyone can be an instant star?

Justin Bieber gets 11,000 new Twitter fans a day.

Justin Bieber appeared in Chicago March 24, sporting a custom-made t-shirt in support of manager Scott "Scooter". He post a Tweet alerting Bieberettes that a Roosevelt Field mall signing event had been cancelled, when thousands of Bieberettes descended on the shopping mall venue. The mob swelled to uncontrollable proportions and a teenage bystander was injured.

Bieber decided to back a new social network, called 'Shots of Me' — a network exclusively for selfies. The app will be marketed by RockLive.

Bieber has a massive teenage social media following. He has 46.5 million Twitter followers – making him the second most popular member of the micro-blogging website after fellow singer Katy Perry – and his first Instagram picture crashed the site’s servers.

The young star has earned $108 million over the past two years, and the future is looking bright as a result of the new release and ensuing tour.

Without a doubt, Bieber owes much of that success to Facebook and Twitter, which he’s used to spread word of his album and concerts to tens of millions of followers.