Josh on video

He is attractive enough in a shy sort of way but the kid is not a looker in the classic sense. Neither is his voice the best-sounding in the world. But his simple expressive singing gives me goosebumps and during times when a song emanates from his vocal chords, it seems like Josh Groban is the handsomest, sexiest guy in existence.

Must be because he is still young and has this kind of little boy charm. Must also be because you do not usually get guys his age doing classical singing. Must be because he seems to have been privileged to get his hands on really beautiful melodies. Maybe, it is just because my very first memory of Josh Groban is his breakthrough stint in the TV series Ally McBeal. He played a young man, shy and insecure, who sued the girl who broke their date to the senior prom. He lost the case and took Ally to the prom instead. There he sang You’re Still You and reduced the ballroom to astounded, admiring silence. That image stuck.

So it only follows that if Groban sounds like the ultimate in gorgeous while singing, the charm trebles if you are watching him perform live. Of course, a Josh Groban concert on local shores is out of the question at the moment, our current times not being that conducive to traveling to far-off places and performing in crowded halls. There were plans to bring him over last year but that failed to happen. Given this situation video provides a nice alternative and there is now a Josh Groban in Concert sound and video set available in VCD and DVD formats in the stores.

The album is made of a live-recorded CD with some songs included in his multi-platinum selling album also titled Josh Groban plus his rendition of the Christmas carol O Holy Night. The video is an hour and a half of concert footage taken from Groban’s appearance on the PBS concert series Great Performances. Again he performs most of his hit songs like Alla Luce del Sole, You’re Still You, Vincent, Alejate, Home to Stay, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, To Where You Are, The Prayer and Let Me Fall.

Then there are some new songs we have not heard before like Broken Vow which Josh performs with his producer, the famous David Foster on the piano and the truly moving For Always, a song written for the Spielberg movie A.I. by John Williams.

This one really says a lot about how far Groban has come in only a short three years. He was discovered when he was 17 and he is now only 21 years old. He now does a concert and the multi-Oscar-winning Williams, a living legend for the memorable music he created for Star Wars, E.T., Schindler’s List and others, not only allowed Groban to sing his original work but also joined Groban on stage to conduct the orchestra. That was really something and it is all on the video Josh Groban. Get a copy now.

Still on Josh. I was checking out the Billboard charts when I came across a strange thing. The first Josh Groban is this week’s greatest gainer in the Billboard 200 album chart. That means that out of 200 albums in the list, Groban’s is the one that made the most significant gains within a period of one week. It went from number 41 to number 19.

What makes this doubly strange is the fact that the album has already been on the list for 65 weeks! That means a year and 13 weeks! There must be a very good reason for that. Did he do Oprah again? But whatever the reason, this only shows that his popularity continues to grow and there are more big things coming his way.

Here are the top 10 albums on the list: Get Rich or Die by 50 Cent; Come Away with Me by Norah Jones; Street Dreams by Fabolous; Chocolate Factory by R.Kelly; La Bella Mafia by Lil Kim; Home by the Dixie Chicks; Fallen by Evanescence; Cocky by Kid Rock; Chicago the soundtrack of the motion picture featuring Richard Gere, Renee Zellwegger and Catherine Zeta-Jones; and Cradle 2 the Grave, another movie soundtrack.

The singles are In Da Club also by 50 Cent; All I Have by Jennifer Lopez featuring LL Cool J; Ignition by R. Kelly; Mesmerize by Ja Rule featuring Ashanti; Miss You by Aaliyah; Picture by Kid Rock featuring Sheryl Crow or Allison Moorer; Landslide by the Dixie Chicks; I’m with You by Avril Lavigne; Gossip Folks by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott featuring Ludacris; and Cry Me a River by Justin Timberlake.