19-year-old Polish bassist Juliaplaysgroove’s cover of Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now” brings an entirely new vibe to the track, bringing the funk right up front! Fans liked it a lot and the cover has since picked up nearly 14 million views on her YouTube channel so far, making it her most popular video.
The original song already has a pretty busy bass part, but Julia adds her own groove to the track and turns the bass into more of a lead instrument, interacting with the vocals in a melodic way. It’s quite a tasteful way to add some more musical color to the song, as you can hear in the cover below.
Juliaplaysgroove’s channel has been going from strength to strength over the past few years and currently has 669,000 subscribers and 69.6 million total views. Julia is seemingly a bit of a Dua Lipa fanatic, as three of her top five most popular videos are Dua Lipa covers. She also covers a range of other contemporary pop songs and a smattering of songs in other styles, such as rock, vintage pop and funk songs.
Julia’s second most popular video is Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”, which you can listen to below. This song has attracted 5.2 million views, with many fans complimenting Julia’s groove and smooth flow on the instrument. The cover is also notable for bringing the bass forward a great deal in the mix and arrangement compared to the original, where the bass sits more in the background.
Julia explained in the video why she keeps covering Dua Lipa, stating that “Dua’s new album Future Nostalgia is absolutely amazing! It’s full of groove and tasty basslines.” This is undoubtedly true, and now you can hear all the small details in them thanks to Julia’s bass covers.
The young bassist, who is now 22 years old, has been noticed by the bass community, as evidenced by her interview with No Treble, who praised her inventive bass arrangements. In the interview Julia commented on the huge popularity of her “Don’t Start Now” cover, stating “It is a great song with a great bass line, and I kind of expected that this cover would be popular, but I never thought it would get over one million views in two weeks!”
Julia’s covers have also been noticed by some of her heroes in the industry, such as Jamiroquai bassist Stuart Zender, who she named as one of her favourite bassists. She stated: “I remember I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Stuart Zender’s comment on my cover. [It was] similar with Thundercat and Vulfpeck. I feel very honored to be noticed by such incredible musicians.”
In the future, Julia hopes to break into the industry. She stated that she plans to attend music college and become a session bassist in the future. “Pursuing bass playing as a career would be a dream come true,” she said. If you want to see more from Juliaplaysgroove, subscribe to her YouTube channel or follow her on Instagram.