COLBIE CAILLAT​

Colbie Marie Caillat (born May 28, 1985) is an American singer-songwriter. She rose to fame through social networking website Myspace. At that time, she was the number one unsigned artist of her genre.

After signing with Universal Republic Records, she released her debut album, Coco, in July 2007. The album included the hit singles “Bubbly” and “Realize”, and has sold 2,060,000 copies in the US, and is certified 2× Platinum. In 2008, she recorded a duet with Jason Mraz, “Lucky”, which won a Grammy Award. In August 2009 she released Breakthrough, her second album, which became her first album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. It has been certified gold by the RIAA. Breakthrough was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards. She was also part of the group that won Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammy Awards for her featured vocals and writing on Taylor Swift’s Fearless album. In July 2011, she released her third studio album, All of You. In October 2012 she released her first Christmas album, Christmas in the Sand. From 2018 to 2020, she was a member of the country music group Gone West.

Caillat has sold over six million albums worldwide and over 10 million singles. In 2009 she was named Billboard magazine’s 94th-best-selling music artist of the 2000s.

Caillat was born in Malibu, California, and grew up in Newbury Park, California. Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours (1977), Tusk (1979), and Mirage (1982) albums. When she was an infant, her parents gave her the nickname “Coco”, which she would later name her debut album.

Caillat took piano lessons as a child, but lacked significant inspiration until she turned 11 years old, when she became enthralled with Lauryn Hill’s performance in Sister Act 2. She realized that she wanted to be a singer, and began taking vocal lessons, performing onstage for the first time in sixth grade. Since then she has covered the Roberta Flack song “Killing Me Softly”, which had previously been covered by Lauryn Hill, and Hill’s own “Tell Him”.

Caillat soon met producer Mikal Blue, who hired her to sing on techno songs used at fashion shows. Caillat began playing the acoustic guitar at age 19, and Blue helped her record her first song.

She auditioned for American Idol but was rejected at the pre-audition stage and was unable to sing for the judges. The second time she auditioned for the show, she sang her own original song, “Bubbly”, and was rejected once again. However, Caillat expressed gratitude at the judges’ decision, saying “I was shy. I was nervous. I didn’t look the greatest. I wasn’t ready for it yet. I was glad, when I auditioned, that they said no.”

The popularity of Caillat’s MySpace profile led her to become the number-one unsigned singer in her genre for four consecutive months.

Caillat’s debut album, Coco, was released on July 10, 2007, in Australia and Asia and a week later in North America. Its deluxe edition was released on September 3, 2008, in Japan and November 11, 2008, worldwide. The album was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA with shipments to U.S. retailers of 2,000,000 units. The album’s first single, “Bubbly”, peaked at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Pop 100. It also topped the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks and Hot Adult Top 40 Tracks charts for 19 and 14 weeks, respectively. The single was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on December 13, 2007, with sales of more than 2.6 million downloads in the US. On November, 20, she released the Christmas song “Mistletoe” and peaked at number 75 at Billboard Hot 100. The song was the most downloaded holiday song of 2007. It was also featured in the film Baby Mama. The second single from Coco, “Realize”, was released on January 23, 2008, peaking at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming her second Top 20 hit in the United States.

“The Little Things”, was released as the third single in Germany on March 7, 2008, and in United States in October 2008. The single did not chart well in the US, and was her weakest charting single from the album, peaking at number seven on US Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100. She also recorded a French translated version of this song. The original music video was released only in Europe and was shot in San Francisco. Another music video for the song was shot in Hawaii and was a prequel to “Bubbly”. The fourth and final single from the album in the United States was, “Somethin’ Special (Beijing Olympic Mix)”, released on July 29, 2008. The song was included only in the deluxe edition. It was released to give support to the American athletes participating in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, in China, and also was included on the AT&T Team USA Soundtrack. Caillat also sings on “You” by Schiller and appears in the music video. She has been involved in the soundtrack of the movie Imagine That; she and Mikal Blue cover the Beatles song “Here Comes the Sun”. She is also featured in Colombian singer Juanes’ album La vida… es un ratico (en vivo) in the song “Hoy Me Voy”. In October, the song “Midnight Bottle” was included in the soundtrack of Brazilian soap opera Três Irmãs. She also played herself in this soap opera and performed the song. Caillat provided background vocals for and co-wrote Taylor Swift’s song “Breathe”, on her album, Fearless.

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