Over the past couple of years, I have subscribed to over 100 channels. So this is going to be a long list. Take your patience pills.
1. Music
- AirwaveMusicTV: Does wonderful electronic, dubstep, house covers and mixes of both popular songs and Indie artists.
- BalconyTV: One of the most successful and long-running music show which features bands and artists from all over the world including, but not limited to, London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Delhi, Dubai, Mumbai, Budapest.
- BlackmillMusic: Another dubstep/chill/electro artist, Blackmill is superb.
- boyceavenue: The first cover artist I ever followed on Youtube, boyceavenue does wonderful guitar covers and has an excellent choice of songs.
- Chill Valley Music: Similar to Airwave and Blackmill.
- Croft Sessions: Perfect for discovering indie music.
- EarthSync Records: A channel that focuses on earth, folk and fusion music as against the more popular genres.
- Fluidified: The best of ambient and chill music.
- Funky Panda™: The music channel for lovers of funk.
- Liquicity and Liquiform: Two separate channels but similar sounds. Major focus is on the liquid sub-genre that features synthesized sounds within the drum and bass genre.
- Monstercat: Electronic music.
- MrSuicideSheep: Another very popular channel for electronic music.
- ThePianoGuys: Two guys playing the piano and the cello and producing some wonderful melodies.
2. Indian music
- Bombay Cab Sessions: An Indian musical idea, wherein Indie artists sing while riding a commercial cab in Mumbai.
- Coke Studio and Coke Studio @ MTV: One of the most successful musical projects around music from the Indian sub-continent (primarily India and Pak). A much needed reprieve from the trashy Bollywood music.
- Cotton Press Studio: Featuring artists like Karsh Kale, Bombay Bicycle Club, Pentagram etc, CPS is another indie project you must give a try.
- Lahooti Live Sessions: Promotes Indian classical, folk, fusion and sufi music.
- Maati Baani: Featuring one wonderfully talented lady and many other guest artists, Maatibaani is like a fresh breath of air.
- Shankar Tucker: Popularly called The ShrutiBox, the Shankar Tucker Project brought a fresh mix of Indian folk and classical music with western jazz and blues. It also helped bring to light some really talented artists like Rohan Kymal, Rohini Ravada, Shriram Iyer etc
- Dewar’s India: Dewar’s is an Indian musical documentary series featuring the likes of Parikrama, Agnee, Mohit Chauhan, Raghu Dixit, Swarathma, Karsh Kale etc. There are 27 episodes put together beautifully to give you a small glimpse of Indian musical diversity.
- Pepsi – One For The Road: Part of the MTV Indies concept. Featured Papon, Raghu Dixit, Shaa’ir + Func, and Indus Creed.
- chaiwalla sessions: Bringing together Indian love for music and hot, steaming tea, chaiwalla session is produced by Society tea in collaboration with nh7.in. Usually features public performances by Indian rock bands and indie artists.
- The Peninsula Studios: Focuses on reviving traditional Indian folk music by collaborating and bringing together musicians and singers from all major Indian gharanas
- StudioUnplugged: Some really wonderful renditions of old and new Bollywood songs
- Kabir Cafe: A lighter one that has a certain happy vibe to it, Kabir Cafe aims to bring together the words and writing of Kabir to life in the form of music.
3. Science and learning
- AsapSCIENCE: One of the most popular science channels, AsapSCIENCE which tries to explain some simple, yet important topics of Science. They use a combination of animated sketches and voice-over narration.
- CGP Grey: If you wanna learn something random in less than 5 mins, go here.
- CrashCourse: 10-12 min crash courses on everything you need to know. Almost like the video version of AskReddit. Covers a wide range of topics from history to politics, from war to science, from economics to religion.
- MinutePhysics: Short videos that explain some important concepts of Physics in a simple language.
- Numberphile: The MinutePhysics of Mathematics. Including videos on Ramanujam Summation, Enigma Machine, the concept of Infinity and much more.
- SciShow: The short TV show kids should watch.
- SmarterEveryDay: Featuring more of everyday experiments than mundane concepts, SED is a like an online fun laboratory.
4. India-related
- All India Bakchod: India’s first premier comedy group.
- Graphic India: Currently they are doing an animated web-series on the epic Mahabharata. The story has been adapted by Grant Morrison and is aptly titled, “18 days”.
- TheViralFeverVideos: TVF is better than AIB. There, I said it!
5. Humor
- Bad Lip Reading: Ever wondered what the characters are saying in movies without actually listening to the dialogues? Turns out, if you are creative enough, you can come up with some pretty funny stuff.
- DmPranksProductions: The most popular prank channel on Youtube.
- Ownage Pranks
- ERB: Epic Rap Battles. These guys blew the scene open with their humorous, accurate, intelligent and all-around wonderful rap battles featuring historic and fictional characters.
- FailArmy: A guilty pleasure of mine is to watch people do stupid stuff. Failarmy delivers that twice a week.
- TheFineBros: An interesting concept where people from all age groups (teens, kids, old people, youtubers) react to some of the most viral videos on the internet. Funny and also a great place to discover other youtubers and trending videos.
6. Comics and superheroes
- batinthesun: An independent movie production channel, they do some crazy, creative stuff like Batman v/s Wolverine, Superman v/s Thor etc. Good production quality.
- Beyond the Lot: The official Youtube channel of WB, BTL has some exciting exclusive, sneak preview, behind-the-scenes stuff from DC comics.
- LLPros ™: They make some good comic book based shorts including a current Red Hood series.
7. Gaming
- PewDiePie: He obviously had to make the list, no? The most subscribed channel on YouTube is about a person playing video games on his desktop while speaking gibberish. PewDiePie is awesome, btw!
- CaptainSparklez: Another channel on gaming. However, Cap only does Minecraft. And makes wonderful videos, including minecraft versions of famous songs like Gangnam Style, Harlem Shake, and movies like The Hunger Games. Guy’s got some mad design skills.
- H2ODelirious: Another funny gaming channel.
- I AM WILDCAT
- jacksepticeye
- ScrewAttack!
8. Movies
- CinemaSins: Some people like to nit-pick others’ mistakes. But no one does it like CinemaSins. They rip apart a lot popular movies and expose plot inconsistencies, loopholes, directorial and editorial mistakes, factual errors etc.
- Horror Addict: Being a fan of the horror genre, HA is the go to place for me for upcoming horror movie trailers.
- How It Should Have Ended: HISHE does parodies (animated) of movie endings. And gives an alternate take on what it should have been.
- MOVIECLIPS Trailers: The biggest channel for upcoming movie trailers.
- SHORTS HD: My go to place for watching short movies.
9. Others
- devinsupertramp: Makes amazing videos related to adventure sports. For your daily dose of vicarious adrenaline rush.
- Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: For some brilliant political satire.
- Team Coco: Similar to John Oliver.
- travelfilmarchive: A wonderful channel that shows you the world from decades ago. In their own words: “The Travel Film Archive is a collection of travelogues and educational and industrial films — many of them in color – that show the world the way it was between 1900 and 1970. Our holdings include archives of the renowned travel filmmakers Burton Holmes, Andre de la Varre, and James A. FitzPatrick, as well as footage shot by many other intinerant cameramen.”
- WatchMojo.com: Do you like lists? Are you in love with Buzzfeed? Then you will drool over WM. They release multiple videos each day ranging from top 10 movie mistakes, to worst deaths in comics, to most irritating boy bands.
