Cimorelli

Cimorelli is an American singing group. The band consists of sisters Christina, Katherine, Lisa, Amy and Lauren Cimorelli - the youngest sister, Dani Cimorelli, was a member from 2010 to 2020. They are best known for their a cappella song covers and their use of multi-part harmonies.
The Cimorelli sisters were part of a large family and resided in El Dorado Hills, California. Having had a musical upbringing, the band was formed in 2007 and the eponymous YouTube channel was created in 2008. Their music did not receive much traction until 2009, where their Party In the USA cover was posted and subsequently received much attention. The cover was noticed by seasoned manager Sarah Stennett, and the band moved to LA to further pursue their musical career. 
The group signed to Island and released some of their most popular music (both covers and originals) during this period, including the CimFam (2011), Believe It (2012), Made In America (2013), Renegade (2014) and Christmas Magic (2014) EPs. Producers, directors and songwriters who had previously worked with A-list celebrities contributed to their peak in popularity from 2012-2014.
The sisters resided in the area until 2015, where they moved to Nashville, Tennessee while also leaving Island. During their independent artistry, they released their first albums - Up At Night (2016), followed by Alive (2016) and Sad Girls Club (2017). In this period, their original music belonged to the pop, country and Christian genres and dealt with heartbreak, relationships, and religion. Most recently, they released the I Love You or Whatever (2018) and Christmas Lights (2018) EPs.
One of the more prominent music YouTube channels of the early to mid-2010s, in their over decade-long musical career, their YouTube channel has had 5.51 million subscribers at its peak and over 1.63 billion views. Four of the aforementioned extended plays and all three albums have reached the Billboard charts. A few of their covers have been praised by their original artists, such as Taylor Swift, Little Mix, Clean Bandit, Lauv, Demi Lovato and JVKE.
==Members==
*Christina Lynne Reali (née Cimorelli) (born: ) 
*Katherine Ann Straneva (née Cimorelli) (born: )
*Lisa Michelle Gilbert (née Cimorelli) (born: )
*Amy Elizabeth Cimorelli  (born: )
*Lauren Christine Cimorelli (born: )
*Danielle "Dani" Nicole Calleiro (née Cimorelli) (former member) (born: )
Additionally, their eldest brother, Mike Jr, was a member briefly from 2007 - 2008.
==Early Life==
===Family===
A notable feature of Cimorelli is their being born into a large family. Their parents were Lynne (born May 31st, 1963) and Michael Cimorelli Sr. (born July 7th, 1961). Lynne Cimorelli is of Norwegian-Irish descent and had a master’s degree in Music, while Michael Cimorelli Sr. is of Italian descent and had a degree in Construction Engineering. Altogether, they gave birth to 11 children; aside from the six sisters, they gave birth to five brothers (listed from oldest to youngest) - Michael Jr. (born 1989), Alex (born 1996), Christian (born 2002), Nick (born 2003) and Joey (born 2005).
===Childhood===
The Cimorelli family resided in El Dorado Hills, California. According to the official Cimorelli blog, Lynne opted to have her children do homeschooling, citing her negative experiences with public schooling. They also had a Catholic upbringing.
Being a talented musician, Lynne taught the sisters how to sing, harmonize and play the piano, and exposed them to musical theatre.
==Career==
===2007 - 2010: Beginnings, discovery, move to Southern California===
Christina Cimorelli originated the idea of a band. The eldest five sisters started to perform around their hometown. During this period, their attempts to cultivate a fan base were "to no avail." They also released the Hello There EP in 2008.
Upon Katherine's suggestion, the group decided to upload a cover of Miley Cyrus' Party In the USA onto YouTube. Prior to this, they had been uploading covers and original songs. The video proved to be popular, and attracted the attention of the daughter of British manager Sarah Stennett. At the time, Stennett was managing now prominent artists like Jessie J and Ellie Goulding. The manager contacted the band, and at her behest moved to Malibu, California in Los Angeles. The band recalled being neighbors with Nicki Minaj. In 2010, a then nine-year old Dani joined the band, and in the same year, they became signed to the record label Island.
===2011 - 2015: Peak in success===
The band continued to release music - both original and cover music - which proved to be among their most popular. This rise in popularity may be attributed to working with A-list producers, songwriters and directors; for example, music producer Theron Feemster, who previously worked with Eminem, produced Million Bucks and Julia Michaels wrote I Got You.
They released their second EP, CimFam EP, in 2011. They released the Believe It EP in 2012. In 2013, they released the Made In America EP. The titular song proved to be extremely popular - its music video has over 30 million views as of 2020. It reached 179 in the Billboard US charts, and was even covered by Charlie Puth, when he was just an emerging artist. The music would also be featured in other YouTubers’ videos.
The band experienced pressures from producers to 'fit in'; this inspired the song Renegade, which formed part of the Renegade EP, released in 2014. A Christmas album, Christmas Magic EP was also released in 2014. Several of these EPs would reach the Billboard Heatseekers charts. Aside from original music, they continued to post covers; these would later win them the ’Choice Web Star' category in the Teen Choice Awards. They were nominated the year prior, and would be nominated again for the next few years. The band would also go on a few tours during this period.
The band now had the opportunity to meet several celebrities, such as Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and Fifth Harmony. In addition, they also got to meet and collaborate with other YouTubers. One of their first appearances in other YouTuber's videos was with the Fine Bros, additionally appearing in their Nickelodeon show React To That, as well as on their MyMusic channel. They also worked with MattyBRaps to make parody covers of Call Me Maybe and Gangnam Style, the now-deleted videos have exceeded over 110 million views. They worked with AwesomenessTV, and acted in the web series Summer With Cimorelli in 2014. They also made an appearance on Bethany Mota's channel. Even when they did not physically appear, YouTubers would use their music - both Mota and Niki and Gabi used Made In America in one of their videos.
===2015 - present: Move to Nashville, departure from Island ===
The band managed to go to movie premieres, worked with esteemed producers and met with and collaborated with celebrities, such as The Vamps and James Maslow.  Despite this, they recalled negative experiences during their stay in LA - Katherine recalled an experience with a cruel producer that left her in tears. Additionally, according to Lisa, song and lyric ideas would be ignored by producers, and "[they] would think that other artists wanted to be our friends, only to find out that they did not want to be our friends". After getting 'burnt out', and realizing that 'a major label deal wasn't for [them]', the band decided to move to Nashville, Tennessee, citing its prominent music industry. There, they befriended and collaborated with some of the local artists in that area.
They left their record label, and in the same year, released the Hearts on Fire mixtape. As independent musicians, they sought crowdfunding to finance their musical ventures, utilizing websites such as PledgeMusic and Patreon. They released three albums from 2016 to 2017: their debut album Up At Night, which features redone songs from the Hearts on Fire mixtape, Alive and Sad Girls' Club. The band released 2 other EPs, I Love You Or Whatever, in 2018, and Christmas Lights in November of the same year. After previously having an intermittent upload schedule, the sisters started uploading every Saturday (dubbed 'Cimorelli Saturday').
The sisters had the opportunity to collaborate with Natasha Bedingfield, making two covers with the artist (one for each channel). Later in the year, Cimorelli collaborated with Aly and AJ to cover the latter's song 'Chemicals React'. 
After a period of relative channel stagnation, the band collaborated with James Charles in 2019 to cover Never Enough from The Greatest Showman, which caused an accelerated channel growth. They would fly back to LA to collaborate with him again later in the year, as well as musician Kurt Hugo Schneider, LaurDIY, Pomplamoose and Scary Pockets. The group celebrated their tenth anniversary of their Party In The USA cover by recreating their old covers and original music.
The group pursued other ventures during this period. The Cimorelli Podcast was launched in 2017, and as of 2021 has five seasons. The group has acted in two instances: Lisa, Amy and Dani appeared in the movie Hope Springs Eternal. The sisters also released two books: Lessons Learned and Believe In You, and contributed to Hunter March’s book TBH alongside other YouTubers.
In 2020, Dani Cimorelli left the band, citing wanting to pursue other career aspirations. The last music video she appeared in was Believe In You. She would later focus on her own YouTube channel. The now quintet worked on music on their own, releasing I Am Enough later in the year, and Skin in 2023. 
The band also released a channel targeted for children, CimKids, where they cover nursery rhymes and other children's songs. 
==Style==
===Videos===
The group became notable for their multi-part harmony covers. Their cover songs usually start with “Hey guys, I’m Christina, I’m Katherine, I’m Lisa, I’m Amy, and I’m Lauren…” (or “I’m Lauren, and I’m Dani, when Dani was in the band), followed by, “and we’re gonna do (song name) by (artist)”. In the beginning, most of their videos were live and a cappella, but in the late 2010s and 2020, most of their covers used instruments and were prerecorded. After the cover ends, they usually answer a question from their fans titled 'Question of the Week'. The videos usually have bloopers added which will often take up a majority of the video's runtime.
In addition, the group occasionally do challenge videos, usually pertaining to harmony and music. Some videos deal with life experiences, and even less commonly, fashion and beauty.
===Music===
Their music covers omit any profanity in the original songs; the band cites their young audience as a reason for this.
In their early period, the group made original music that almost exclusively belonged to the teen pop genre. During their independent artistry, however, this changed; Hearts on Fire is a country pop album, and Alive is a Christian album. The group’s music shifted from being usually upbeat, during their time in LA, to being more solemn and serious as independent artists (I Love You Or Whatever is an exception to this). Recurring themes in their lyricism include self-worth, love, heartbreak and relationship with God. 
There are exceptions; their song Made In America is a patriotic song, and their song Renegade encourages personal independence.
==Individual ventures==
Many of the sisters have gone into individual ventures. Christina and Katherine have their own individual YouTube channels where they discuss their experiences with motherhood and their Christian faith. Christina also runs a life coaching business.
Lisa has released music on her own channel, both individually and collaborating with other musicians, for example with Riff Raff for his Aquaberry Aquarius EP. Lauren has released her EP, Orange, featuring four original songs. She also released her second EP, Blue, in August of 2020.
Dani has two YouTube channels - one featuring her and husband Emmyn, and one featuring herself. The channel involving herself tackles more mature topics, such as religion, social justice and sex-related topics. She started posted videos on those channels after her departure from the band, and as of June 2023 has amassed over 141,000 subscribers. Aside from her YouTube career, she has had a 9-5 job working at an animal sanctuary.
==Personal lives==
Four of the six sisters (Katherine, Amy, Lauren and Dani) suffer from brachydactyly, a disease which causes their fingers to be abnormally short and crooked.
Christina Cimorelli married Nick Reali in 2018. The couple has 1 boy and 1 girl.
Katherine Cimorelli married Max Straneva in 2020. The couple has 3 boys.
Lisa Cimorelli married New Found Glory bassist Chad Gilbert in 2020. The couple has 1 girl.
Amy Cimorelli has Turner syndrome and has spoken about her experience with the condition. 
Dani Cimorelli married Emmyn Calleiro in 2019. Emmyn is the lead singer of the pop punk band Games We Play, and had previously toured with Cimorelli as a drummer. She left her Catholic faith to become a non-denominational Christian. In 2022, Dani stated that she was bisexual. 
==Trivia==
*Lisa discovered Camila Cabello in 2011 before her popularization from Fifth Harmony. Cabello posted a cover of Demi Lovato's Skyscraper which Lisa subsequently found; the video description of the cover makes reference of Lisa to this day. 
==References==
Category:Music YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2008
Category:One million subscribers
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Category:One billion views