For a little insight into his success, Josh Groban can glance at his own iPod.

It's an eclectic lot of music: albums by British rockers Thom Yorke and Keane, tracks by hip-hoppers Jay-Z and Common, the new Red Hot Chili Peppers. A typically diverse slate of tastes for a young music fan in 2007.

It points to a big reason that Groban's classical pop has managed to find a thriving niche among pop audiences. He has been aided by a catch-all Internet that lifts genres once shut out from the mainstream. Groban concedes that his music likely wouldn't have flourished a decade ago, before technology allowed fans to signal that "there was an open-mindedness to different sounds, that radio and MTV weren't god and that a whole audience out there was being underserved."

"The digital world has helped me a great deal," says Groban, who will turn 26 on Tuesday. "The nice thing about it is the younger people in the digital world are doing the digital thing, but the older audience is still out buying the albums."

These are good times for the Los Angeles-born vocalist. His latest Warner Brothers release, "Awake," has sold 1.5 million copies since its November release, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Last weekend, he embarked on one of the new year's biggest tours, a two-month North American run that stops tonight at the Palace of Auburn Hills, this time with a full band and minus the orchestras that backed him on prior outings. He calls it a "fun, high-energy show, more of a pop show with a classical influence."

With his fluid baritone and a repertoire that makes equal room for Italian opera and "American Idol"-ready ballads -- including his global smash "You Raise Me Up" -- Groban has proved to be a reliable hit. His 2001 debut album, propelled by a cameo on television's "Ally McBeal," eventually moved 4.7 million copies. And 2003's "Closer," boosted by appearances on the Super Bowl and "The Oprah Winfrey Show," cemented his stock in the music world, selling 5.2 million copies and placing him at the front of the blossoming adult-pop phenomenon.

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