10 Amazing Videos from the Paste YouTube Channel to Celebrate 500,000 Subscribers
Music Lists Paste Studio
I can’t remember who the first artist we recorded when we opened the Paste Studio in our Atlanta office in 2007, but that first year’s guests included Duncan Sheik, Joan Osborne and Ra Ra Riot. We’d already been filming some of our events at SXSW in Austin and CMJ in New York, and we decided to create a space to have bands come into the office and play for us. It was as much an excuse to have more live music in our daily lives as anything, but it took on new life when we opened the Paste Studio in New York in 2015. It’s since blossomed into possibly the largest series of filmed performances in history with nearly 3,500 sessions—certainly the largest when you include the Daytrotter and Wolfgang’s collections, which add up close to 20,000 performances. At its peak before the pandemic, we were filming up to eight artists each day between our New York and Atlanta studios.
I feel incredibly privileged to have gotten to experienced so many phenomenal and intimate performances over the years. And it’s an even greater privilege to be able to share them with so many people. An enormous thank you to all the artists who’ve played for the cameras, to all the people behind the cameras and at the soundboards and to all of you who’ve watched and subscribed. To celebrate our 500,000 subscriber, here, in chronological order, are 10 of my favorite videos you can find on the Paste YouTube channel.
1. Beck: October 26, 2006
The first time we put on a concert and recorded was the first time we threw a party in New York. Being based in Atlanta, we didn’t get a lot of face-to-face time with the friends we’d made in the music industry, most of whom were in New York and L.A. We invited musicians, publicists and record-label execs to the Knitting Factory in October of 2006 before we had booked any bands. The night’s DJ would be former Paste cover subject Questlove. To our surprise, the next month’s cover artist, Beck, agreed to play. We decided to keep that a surprise until he took the stage in front of about 400 people, taking requests from the crowd, playing “Where It’s At,” “Guess I’m Doing Fine” and my personal favorite, “Devil’s Haircut.” It remains one of my favorite nights with Paste.
2. Brandi Carlile: January 5, 2010
Brandi Carlile is, collectively and without question, my family’s favorite artist. I love her music, but my wife and kids have always been fanatics. This session, which also includes performances of “Turpentine,” “I Will” and “That Year,” was a huge part of that. We’d already had Carlile play our first Paste Rock ‘n’ Reel festival in 2006, when she was a relative unknown, and when she came back in to Atlanta during her 2010 tour, she stopped by to play the Paste Studio. It happened to be on my oldest daughter’s 11th birthday, and because it was a weekend the office was mostly empty except for a half-dozen pre-teen girls. Carlile was so sweet and generous with her time with those kids. And, with the help of the Hanseroth twins, gave us this amazing performance of “Dreams.”
3. The Lumineers: March 16, 2012
The Lumineers played the Paste party during SXSW at Stages on Sixth before the release of their debut album. The line-up also included The 1975, Vintage Trouble, Of Monsters and Men, Glen Hansard, Punch Brothers, Mac DeMarco, Talib Kweli’s Idle Warship, Tennis, Rubblebucket, Built to Spill in one of our best years at the festival. You can watch beautifully recorded full sets all of them on the Paste YouTube channel.
4. First Aid Kit: July 28, 2012
One of my all-time favorite series of sessions we did was at the Newport Folk Festival. From Tom Morello to The Preservation Hall Jazz Band to Dawes to Of Monsters and Men to Rodriguez, artist after artist rose to the specialness of the surroundings in the ruins of the 17th Century fort we were recording in at one of the best festivals in the country. But no one sounded better than the two sisters from Stockholm, Sweden, in First Aid Kit singing “Emmylou.”
5. Fred Armisen: March 12, 2013
Over the years, we’ve published more than music on our YouTube channel, like the many interviews we’ve done on camera, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Stapleton, LaVar Burton, Jemaine Clement, Jodie Whittaker and Billy Gibbons. One of my favorite was talking to comedian Fred Armisen in 2013. We were at SXSW, where he’d gotten his start years before doing man-on-the-street bits with bands. “I feel lucky every step of the way,” he said during the interview, and I can totally relate.
6. Charles Bradley: November 17, 2015
For another party we threw in New York, we had Charles Bradley come play the Brooklyn Bowl with his top-notch band. The charismatic late soul singer gave us every ounce of energy he had, pouring his love out onto the audience. I’m so thankful this performance was captured on video and can’t imagine I’ll ever stop going back to it.
7. Phoebe Bridgers: July 31, 2017
In 2017, Phoebe Bridgers performed four songs for the Paste Studio in New York with just a guitarist in tow, and the result was near perfection. It’s hard to choose just one song, but I’ll go with “Georgia.”
8. Durand Jones & the Indications: August 28, 2017
You never know what’s going to go viral. When our NY studio chief Brad Wagner told me he’d booked Durand Jones & the Indications, I’d never heard of the throw-back soul singer. Certainly none of us expected a single-song video with the group’s drummer Aaron Frazer singing “Is It Any Wonder?” in his falsetto with Jones providing the backup and playing tambourine, that the video would go on to garner 43 million views (and counting) on our channel. But sometimes the cream just organically rises to the top. Be sure to check out the rest of that session, including the “True Love, which has garnered an additional 15 million views.
9. Julia Jacklin: Jan. 24, 2019
We’re proud of the quality of our recording to the point that I sometimes enjoy our versions even more than the studio recordings. I could listen to this version of “Don’t Know How to Keep Loving You” on repeat.
10. Sierra Hull: May 28, 2022
Did you know you needed a bluegrass cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World?” Neither did I until I watched Sierra Hull and her band give yet another flavor to this oft-covered classic at DelFest in Cumberland, Md., last year.
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Josh Jackson is Paste’s co-founder and editor-in-chief. You can follow him on Twitter @joshjackson.