Colbie Caillat

Colbie Caillat owes her early success to MySpace, which brought the soulful folk singer and songwriter to the attention of millions of fans before she'd released a proper debut. The daughter of an audio engineer (Dad worked on Fleetwood Mac's Rumours), the Malibu girl grew up surrounded by music, taking a few piano lessons and starting to sing in earnest while she was still a pre-teen. At 19, she hooked up with producer Mikal Blue, who recorded Caillat's first song and would become her long-time collaborator. A little ditty called "Bubbly" drew the MySpace users to her page by the thousands. Make that hundreds of thousands. When her debut, Coco, came in July 2007, the online buzz helped her become an instant success, and she quickly earned top spots on digital music services and the Billboard charts. By the time its follow-up, Breakthrough, dropped in 2009, Caillat was a bona fide pop star with collaborations with Jason Mraz and Taylor Swift under her belt.