Birdy hits number one in France!
Open Mic UK winner Birdy, hit the number one spot in France with her spine-tingling version of Skinny Love. It follows the massive European success of her self-titled debut album which made number one in Holland and Belgium and made the top 20 in the UK.
Sixteen year-old Birdy aka Jasmine van den Bogaerde won Open Mic UK aged just 12 years-old greeted the news with excitement on Twitter saying, ‘Merci Beacoup, Je suis tellement contente!’, translated to ‘thank you very much, I’m so happy!’ Birdy’s version of the Bon Iver classic hit number one in France at the weekend.
It’s been a extraordinary 12 months for Birdy with her debut album going Gold in the UK, Platinum in Europe and having over 45 million hits on YouTube. With her performances of ‘Shelter’ and her cover of Ed Sheeran’s ‘The A Team’, Open Mic UK winner Birdy was the second most viewed UK musician on YouTube. Birdy was also recently one of the artists who contributed to the Hunger Games’ film soundtrack with her single ‘Just a Game’, along with Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, and Arcade Fire.
Birdy went up against 9,000 hopeful artists in the Open Mic UK national music competition. It’s a process that starts all over again very soon with auditions for this year’s competition starting in August. Birdy swept through the auditions into the regional and area finals to her eventual win at the National Grand Final singing her own song ‘So Be Free’.
Open Mic UK is the largest national music competition for singers and solo artists in the UK. The competition travels across the country every year in search of the UK’s best singers, singer/songwriters, rappers and vocalists, and is open to all genres, so whether you’re into R’n’B, Rap, Acoustic, Pop or Classical – Open Mic UK has it all! Acts can perform either covers or original material and they’ll be invited to a live audition in front of the judging panel.
Birdy recently reminisced about the experience of playing in front of a thousand people at the Open Mic UK Grand Final as “such a cool experience” to Radio One. She explained that it showed her what she wanted to do when she was still very young.
After winning Open Mic UK, Birdy recorded her album with Gareth Henderson in River Studios which resulted in her being offered a publishing contract with Good Soldier Songs Ltd, run by Christian Tattersfield, chairman of Warner Bros. Tattersfield was previously responsible for signing artists such as David Gray. Open Mic UK winner Birdy subsequently got signed to Warner
