Artist of the Week: A Great Big World

The VH1 You Oughta Know artist of 2014 is gearing up to release their first studio album to follow up their hit single 'Say Something'.

A rough time in Ian Axel and Chad Vaccarino's lives has led A Great Big World to enjoy mainstream success. The pop/rock duo admitted they were heartbroken and were not happy with their day jobs when writing "Say Something", which later attracted the attention of Christina Aguilera.

First featured in the final of ABC's dance competition "So You Think You Can Dance", the song became an international hit after it was re-recorded with the pop/R&B diva. Following their performance with the former Mouseketeer on "The Voice", the song reached No. 1 on iTunes charts, toppling Eminem's song. "It's a huge, huge milestone for us," Chad said of the song's performance.

Despite gaining so much recognition so early on in their forming as a band, they were humbled with their achievement so far. "It kind of fell into our laps, and it was just luck and timing," Ian said. The former New York University students were not even dreaming that "Say Something" would be a hit, as Ian said, "It was very powerful and moving for us to write it, but we never thought it would take off like this."

Handling sudden success, however, has been a little hard for Ian, "because we've never dealt with this before, especially with the traveling." He admitted, "It's been a major adjustment. Not having a routine is the hardest thing for me." Chad added, "After the Christina Aguilera collaboration and being on 'The Voice', it felt like our lives changed forever."

The duo's early work was recognized when the "Glee" cast covered their "This Is The New Year" in an episode. It also licensed to various television networks and was featured on "The Amazing Race", ESPN, "One Tree Hill" and "Good Morning America".

Riding high on the success of "Say Something", the group is now set to drop their first studio album "Is There Anybody Out There?" on January 21. Of what the album has to offer, Chad said, "You're not going to get 13 'Say Somethings'. You're going to get a huge spectrum of emotion. A lot of it is fun, upbeat pop music." Ian chimed in, "Each song was significant to us at the time we wrote it. It's like bookmarks for different chapters in our lives."

With such feat, it's not an overstatement that VH1 recently picked A Great Big World as the first You Oughta Know artist of 2014.