Christina Perri

At just 24, Christina Perri has already lived a handful of lives. She's toured the world as an assistant to a rock band, spent a year at a prestigious university, became a wife and then an ex-wife, produced popular music videos, made olive oil in Italy and even served as a fashionista barrista in Beverly Hills. The whole while, music had been tapping her on the shoulder, trying to lead her down a path as a musician. It seems that fate grew tired of this shoulder-tapping approach as well and went for an old fashioned sucker punch.

On June 30th, a raw, defiant break-up song that Perri had written called "Jar of Hearts" aired on Fox's So You Think You Can Dance as a backdrop to a memorable piece choreographed by Stacey Tookey. The song struck a chord with viewers, who began downloading it from iTunes in droves, sending "Jar of Hearts" into the Top 10 on the iTunes Pop chart and into the Top 15 on the Overall chart overnight. Impressed, SYTYCD's producers invited Perri to play the song live on the show two weeks later.

Following Perri's stripped-down piano performance on July 15th, "Jar of Hearts" continued its meteoric rise. After landing at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and at No. 1 on Amazon's digital singles chart, the track sold 200,000 downloads in three weeks. Suddenly a hot property, Perri signed a record deal with Atlantic Records and is in the studio finishing up her debut album, with an eye toward a late fall release. She will also hit the road for a handful of shows in late September to perform with Jason Mraz, one of her all-time favorite artists.

Perri feels that "Jar of Hearts" has connected because, "on a basic level, everyone has had this experience with a person who broke their heart. I'm just telling my story in a very real and direct way. This kind of slapped the crap out of everyone's hearts," she says with a laugh.