Skye Sweetnam Is The Worst Thing To Happen To Music In 2004

This bit might be good if it was sung by a computer.

I don’t need to read Billy Shakespeare
Meet Juliet or Malvolio,

no? Then again, she swore off "Billy Shakespeare", didn't she?

It's fantastically brilliantly stupid, I think ;-)

A few more years of this and 'youth culture' will die. Which will be great.

Billy S is a great song to belt out for fun with a huge overbite and teengirl inflection - "I deawnt caer about Billy Shakespaerrr" with your head jiggling all over the place.

I'm sorry.

As for Skye, herself, she has talent and drive. While no one is expecting her to be the next Britney Spears or Tina Turner, with the right promotion, she could make a living off of music. That being said, I think critics can be too hard on her. Pop music isn't supposed to be existential, it's supposed to be fun. However, if you want something deeper, and don't want to swear off pop music altogether, give the band Pulp a try. "Bad Cover Version" is one of my favorite songs. Or perhaps pick up a Cornershop record.

Keep an eye out for her debut album, by the way. It comes out in August, 2004.

Like Shakespear's Sister?

Chuck---check this out---

http://www.skyesweetnam.com/music.jsp

check the "Radio Free Roscoe Theme" song (30 secs)--it's really good! like those cheesy 60's radio spots with garage bands singing for Great Shakes! very nice punchy hooky but-not-wimpy/wanky MELODIC sense. ( =the melodies/hooks she vocally hangs on the guitar riffs/chords). the girl's got talent, dude. 15 freaking under-age years old.

debut album fiiiinally racking May 18th, as cap record's promo mail reminded you/us.

SKYE SWEETNAM & THE SICK

that's the the logo she had painted on the bass drum for the Britney tour starting last monday---
http://www.skyesweetnam.com/diary.jsp?diaryId=354298

http://www.skyesweetnam.com/tour.jsp
Skye S. is 3rd billed (after Kelis) on the whole Britney us tour, that started last tuesday in san diego. cc: all (geographically correct) writers in your "NYC Rock Mafia" clique and have them watch their daily newspaper for any info on Skye & The Sick's performances--that is, if they live in Portland, Seattle, Denver, Omaha, Moline, Chicago, Auburn Hills (MI), Atlanta, Columbia SC, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Toronto, Montreal, Manchester, Providence, Trenton, or East Rutherford.

last night's Oakland Coliseum gig (which i was unaware of), however, the three papers i've seen barely even mentioned Kelis.

(vegas, home of the 24 hour marriages)--
http://www.skyesweetnam.com/diary.jsp?diaryId=354456 (l"ast night "britney called me 'babe'!", road diary entry)
if this was a 1951 potboiler noir drama, and britney was named Betty Davis and not britney, you would guess exactly where this "let's put a 15 year old Lolita on the road for our cheap opening act!" caper was headed from the Morals Clause angle. ah, maybe Skye'll behave her bratty self and hold herself to just stealing or two of britney's boyfriends. .i'm gonna be checking each batch of each week's journal entries tho, for hints of misbehavior.

album racks on MAY 18th-- NOISE FROM THE BASEMENT/skye. i'm still halfway on the case tho it woulda been interesting to have done a real-time interview on her pink (with giant artist face on the side...of course) tour bus 24 hours ago.

you have one of the "Billy S" CD-singles from last year, right? supposedly Capitolcanada left the majority of the basement-tracks, ie the whole darn album, intact without one bit of re-recording (just bigtime studio mixing)...obviously hence the title Noise From The Basement. lightning doesn't strike every day, but now that i notice her smirky fat-lipped mug on her new Webpage Diary header...she's still my money-choice (of this decade's crop) for All Time brat girl of rock (qualification = you have to have talent). those age 13 (or 14) home "promo videos" were dang unbelievable (in the "hello, little sister...and now let me throttle you in your sleep so you never annoy your big brother...me...again" bracket competition).

reverse/save anywhere from 290 to 590 to whole 899 words allowable, in june once the skye sweetnam mystery (with only one song to date really heard) is unraveled and properly broken down by your professionals (like yo in the hood here). (honest--i know white people who're scared to set foot in my 3-block stretch of the greatest neighborhood...ahhhhhgh, whe're there's a ratio of at least 7 kids runing around in their front yards or sidewalk 24/7 in daylight, to each/any crack house...that's middle america at its lower/lowest-middle-class at its finest. ah, reminds me one of skye's new daily-update webpage photos is her picking up fellow underage girls, er "chatting with new fans" at Burger King! you go sky! and keep that hidden webcam battery-charged for any special "britney moment" that could uh...advance your career. (actually--how the fuck did capitol artist Skye get herself on a Jive-artist-with-no-family-relation arena level tour? britney saw the hit video once while traveling through a foreign country--Canada--and said, "get me that babe"?) ha ha. Noise From The Basement is a pretty good real-life title... i'll write on the blackboard the obvous contender for the age-21 used-to-be-almost-a-star cash-in bio...Memoirs Of A Preteen Slut.... jeez, i should be working in hollywood on some 3rd rate Fox sitcom right now, not throwing away this 3rd-rate talent.
hell, it's not a half-bad (half-true) hook-them-in TV-movie-biofiction title either. only britney's name will be changed to protect the innocent... sure, i can throw up the initial fading-in flashback scene on the vide screen right now: "it all started on britney's tour bus...." and we ain't talking freakin aaron carter and no secrets.

amazing but true: that early 1999 snafu at the San Jose State Events Center (capacity 5,000) where B*Witched's doofus road manager forgot to put me on "the list" to get in (and do interview, etc) (even tho i'd spoken face to face with him three hours earlier at the daly city in-store). yep, the 1st and 3rd billed acts on that tour? NICK AND JESSICA. that was the infamous pre-debut album tour (for Jessica) where the Simpsons er, became the future Lacheys. yikes. now i'm GLAD i didn't get in. seeing or hearing both 90-degrees and Jessica-the-howler in the same night might have inspired attempted suicide. i do recall seeing the 98-D tour bus in front (with giant logo) and thinking, "what the hell? who the fuck is 98 degrees? and why are they headlining above four fiddle-jigging girls from Ireland who'll be forgotten in 15 months??" yep, once again I WAS THERE. fully qualifying me to be the Skye Sweetnam Resident Expert , tho that was kinda lame of me not to be up to speed and hence miss an easy interview/PR op. (not to mention christmas pics with yet again someone 1/3rd my age--own our band's average club/hallgoer age being of course maybe 17... time 3 = me! i'm three times the man i used to be! fun as shit being a full time uncle to the world.

skye sweetnam = the new daphne and celeste?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000A4G4G/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/104-6171041-3907916?v=glance&s=music&vi=customer-reviews

approx 4 of 12 ( = 1/3 = 33.33333333%) "buyer's reviews" irate and offended. (and that's just last year's singles). when i e-mail the Capitol PR person for the two current promos (with about 4 songs; a 3 song promo and a promo of the single) i'll ask that a set be mailed to you also.

http://www.annecarlini.com/ex_interviews.php?id=281 -- "oh yeah, i'm a brat, totally."

canadian interview. ha. did johnny rotten ever write "ROTTEN WAS HERE" on jones/cook's faces every night? ha! "they just kick me...but i'm their boss, right?" hey, what i wouldn't pay to see video of Steve whoever kicking his Boss.

http://www.skyesweetnam.com/skye_w2_800x600.html
no one still has gotten one word (of published quotes) from her presumably catatonic parents. go skye!

(a quick glance at fan testimonials indicates that the message board indicates that the parents are the hands-on chaperones on tour..man what fun that must be. being the go-between disciplinarians between the poor band and their boss. "sweetie, you made your lead guitarist cry. say you're sorry! i said, say you're sorry!" ). raising the question = how do you ground someone who's living in a tour bus?

i have even money down....$1.99 to win $2...that S has the highest registered IQ of any female to ever dabble in rock/pop musc. again, see = brat. there's no way a 14/15 year old can write lyrics that good. (she herself had to point out that "daddy daddy no, i don't wanna go to school" is a mocking of "teen rebellion," jeez are grownups stupid or what).

TANGLED UP IN ME --- LYRIC
http://skyesweetnam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=75

TANGLED UP IN ME - (single) - http://www.skyesweetnam.com/music.jsp

listener test (per my experience) -- put it up (music AND lyric) and listen close once, then a couple more time mindlessly.

let me know how many days it takes for the song to start showing up univited in your head (or is that, mind's ears' eye). specially the killer guitar hook after each chorus. boy this is a GOOD lead single. it can't be out to radio yet--no copies showing on Ebay.
=======================
ah, you probably don't have the ZETTA BYTES single (on the s/t) "Notice Me" on your mental playlist, so that would change the song-control-group (they're very related as I said...tempo and both trafficking in those 4-chord routines, 3 major/1 minor...y'know, like "Peace Of Mind" by Boston, ya).

jeez. whoo. one of the Skye blogs or posts was about how she couldn't get enthusiam (from the label) to update the year 2003 photo shoot, so she just bought 70 pounds of lumber, hired a handy man, built a set on her own in the back yard, and did/orchestrated/directed the damn "pro photo shoot" herself (reimbursed), all parties happy. jeez, i never thought i'd see the day when a new artiste made Madonna look like a piker in the control-freak dept. what, just 6 years till Skyester is fully legal drinking age? 3 till legal generic.

missed one little detail in that PR page/blogs/photos too. the WANTED: Boyfriend (pink sheet)...ah, she has her phone number on it too. (i won't call her PR slave at the label to ask if miss S designed and printed that T-shirt too....stop-action (claymation type) videos, photo shoots, co-writing/co-production credits... well, at least she won't be around to drive the yearbook staff crazy. "uh i know you had your giant face on the side of your tour bus, but it just wouldn't be traditional to put someone's face on the front of the yearbook even tho yes, you could legimately tag it with an "editor in chief, 2007" credit!"

yep. she graduates from HS in year 2007. (or road tutoring likewise).

"hey babe!" ha ha ha. maybe britney can get a job eight years from now when it's all over!

dude, when i was finishing high school senior year (age 17, two past Queen Bratskie's age), i could barely figure out where my dick was to jerk off with it!

our "high school album" just months later kills, but that was just---gooood choice in cover songs. and crazy funky fuzzing and burping vintage early 60's equipment all in 2 tracks total post-overdub, like all those Metallica albums cut in Vancouver. ("nah, guys, take another week down at the Bon Jovi Was Here strip club, kirk's still doing all the guitar solos another coupla times). mfuckingtallica....

-80-
metal metal-licasucccks mike

well what do you know. here's where the Skye/britney tour bus caravan is parked this week, Wed / Thurs / Fri:

http://www.skyesweetnam.com/tour.jsp

Wed -- Omaha !!
Thurs -- Moline, IL !!
Fri -- Chicago !!
etc. jeez, i don't know how they missed hometown Cape Giradeau Missouri...

(if your little sis is hiding out in NYC, well, that's april 10th at the Jersey arena). (i haven't gotten to your 3/12 update e-mail, but i'm not expecting good news from the Easter Bunny)

if sis calls in on the phone, the drill is real simple
(after grabbing her attention with, "Now listen, as your big sister, I think you should go hang out with britney on the tour buses!") well, that is, after that, and then coordinating to the same town and the linked schedule.

locate what middle school (or radio station before/after) that Skye's recruiting cult members, er doing promo, that day (there's no days off). the coolest kids get told, "hey tell your folks you're gonna come hang with me on the tour bus till your 10pm bedtime, we'll get pizza before my soundcheck and just chill, 'kay?

(see photo of cult leader miss S in action). yep, she's zoning in on those 6th graders...get em while they're young (AND...ha...their big brothers are probably right in her age group, 15/16). (see: T shirt photo w/help wanted for vacant position)

your sis being a big time Glo Jeans catalog/magazine cover girl model and all, she might pass as "cool." i believe the secret password is "wow, Skye your stuff rocks!" (it does) or "yeah, Tangled Up In Me", awesome!" (it just about is) as introductary statements. (OR better yet..."where can I get a "NO!" button?").

the britney stuff'll take care of itself. have your sister tell Skye "i'm really worried, i think we should do a cocaine intervention." oh, and the tour bus is pink...uh, with a biiig face (skye, who else?) on the side. pink like S's pink "WANTED: Boyfriend" t-shirt (below) (which has her phone number on it!!! like how precocious can one 15 year old be). (likes attention, much?).

seriously, this is saner than anything your sis'll come up with on her own. (hang in pink tour buses to clear her head). Syke goes back on tour when the album comes out too (summer).

http://www.skyesweetnam.com/aboutme.html
ohh yeah, this girl needs a surrogate big sis to slap her around a little bit. "skye: i know "cult leader" sounds like a cool title and all, but it's just not a groovy career. just cause you designed websites, directed videos and photo shoots, and wrote/co-produced by the age 15, that doesn't mean you shoud/have to design the world! and you gotta do something about those clothes anyway"

being the natonal writer assigned to the Village Voice "watcher function" ( = reviewing the debut album when it comes out) i actually have connections (via Capitol's publicity womyn in charge of this client) to easily find out which darned middle school skye's training future young hoochies at that day.

============
chuck: i have a Missouri muso friend, recently relocated back out to Sacramento, who has a younger sister who's a big time teen mag clothes model. who just recently ran away from home, with co-account (her/mom) access to big $$$. we're gonna try to coordinate her with the Skye/britney tour bus hang-out routines to keep her out of trouble. no, seriously... and actually now that i ponder it for 2 seconds...syke's fashion style (clothes) is SCARY canadian bad clueless, she does indeed need wardrobe advice! (she accepts none at present...i mean the girl did/ran her own freaking label photo shoot).

the line about the "cocaine intervention" is pretty freaking funny actually. it just could work....

part of me wishes she meant Billy Squier, although who'd want to swear off the original master of the stroke?

"It was kind of disappointing (when Britney hurt her knee) because we had this whole media hype behind the tour. It would have worked really well for a lead up for my album."

Who the hell talks like that? (Luke Haines, maybe.) But - unironically?!

and I actually really think these are great lyrics.

i suggest anger-management therapy

i also luv mandy moore's boob in the 'billy s' vid.

money money woo! lotsa money money woo!

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0441/saunders.php

Anyway, I will admit to really enjoying "Billy S.", Avril-style packaging or none, and I've met people who worked on the record who say "Yeah, actually she can sing", so we'll just have to let the market decide...

and i love the green heart that's markered around her eye on the cd cover.

unfortunately, the songs just don't do it for me. some elements of "tangled up in me" really do however.

give her a few more years, seriously, if her writing matures, or if she learns how to play the piano or the chimes even, she will rule.

then again, if she takes a turn for the matrix or other stock songwriters, then she should start just wear a paper bag on her head right now and dissipate.

the whole progression
from the first two verses to
the third one: KLASSIK

exacly. wtf is this?
if you REALLY want to read some perfect lyrics, you'd better find yourself some Finch.
Finch is kickass, like all other good rockbands.
damn, just to notice myself; what the hell am I actually doing here?
...yeah, bored to death.
never mind, I'm off !!
xXx PrinCeSs Finchaholic
p.s. Lostprophets, Three Days Grace, Linkin Park, Adema and 12 Stones are kickass either!
:D

ps linkin park rocks!!!!! all real rockbands do!

i know i'm such a mooch, but shit, c'mon.

oh, i would love to be a bug on the wall at whatever Hollywood/Disney exec meeting where the question "is there any way we can yank Skye's contract from Capitol canada/america on the cheap?" was thrown out. Disney loves the girl. she's done some standard acting-class and possible audition work in hollywood but i forget if any of it involved Disney.

a couple months ago she took the new album's worth of "basement recordings" she and James R had completed, into hollywood Capitol for a pick it/kick it walk the plank meeting. now, more artists with zero sales in america on a high-profile release (britney tour in particular) would get the plank long before any "demos" were submitted (ie, Noise From The Basement, Vol 2, which is basically 12/14th demos taken to be touched up and re-mixed by the bigshot who also did the American Idiot album which funnily enough shipped on the same day last september!).

nope. she charmed the pants off them, and came out with a FULL BUDGET to go recut everything at a "real studio" with "REAL microphones, no more crap microphones."

you need to read all her Journals/Blogs on http://www.myspace.com/skyesweetnam although her networking page straggles far behind her website proper at times. (a busy girl only has to much laptop time).

also, check the many (funny) comments onto her photos page by three practicing "punk rockers: 2005:

1) me
2) Clorox Girls drummer Clay from Portland (a pretty good 1979 LA-style punk band)
3 lead singer Johnny Jewel from Denver and now in portland (with his average to ok band, entertaining live but not much more

yes of course we've double dared Skye to write the fucking best rock song of all time, already ok.

Skye may well the mad scientist lab combination of uber-brat with the smartest person (per raw IQ or at least pure creative talent -- you ever see her self-made "stop motion" video for "Imaginary Superstar"?) to ever luck into the major label world of rock and roll. she knows how smart she is, and i get the impression she gets a little exasperated at time with having TO EXPLAIN THINGS to those stupid grownups who run the checkbooks, or studios, or....oog. one of her journals says that she's taking top-level "studio/music engineering classes" in LA any minute now!

remember the VV review (that i wrote) which made the obvious parallel to Tom Scholz's 1st (and second, actually) Boston album? well, take a guess what CD was included in skye's "christmas list" three months later of what she had gotten under the christmas tree. 1st Boston album. dude the girl is so on the case it's funny. now jump ahead and read the blog about "no more crap microphones, no more drum machines...i want this next record to sound PHAT." well hella yeah if you're been dared to write year 2005's More Than A Feeling already, twice over, then of course it better sound "big."

her internet / networking work is maybe the first real-life example of a teenage rock person (on major label level) working the messaging/comments just like any regular 10th grade girl with a laptop or home PC.

the pictures of her room at home are hysterical. (the half dozen international clocks up so that she can learn to instantly convert her mind to different times zones from Japan to Germany).

no pictures of her long suffering single mom exist yet.

Mike,

SWEET. Yeah, I'm a Skye neophyte...I discovered her completely randomly while I was in London earlier this year while avoiding, um, "independent" music. Although if Skye isn't an "independent" artist, no one is. I've been arguing for a few months now that Skye is the smartest and savviest artist anywhere right now and you'd be amazed (maybe not) at the hostility people have toward her music without 1) knowing anything about how it was made (some people don't like to think that a big scary label like Capitol could be supporting a teenage artist making her own music on her own terms) or 2) really even listening to it. Awesome that she's staying the course with James (and getting shitloads of money thrown at her).

This girl is SMART -- the first mp3 copy I ever had of "Basement" didn't have "Hypocrite" on it, which is now one of my favorites -- and I don't kn ow that I've ever heard anyone actually name drop ProTools in their song as a self-conscious preemptive defense against potential critics (not to mention "Avril Lite" which is actually smarter than it is correct...she knows she's better than Avril AND she understands the stigma AND she probably doesn't even let it bother her)...which suggests to me that she'll do just fine in any engineering class she takes.

"Imaginary Superstar" is awesome...did you hear the WIOG interview linked from her official site's message board? Beyond mentioning the "horror film elements" of "Split Personality" in like the first sentence and then basically dominating the interview from this schlub (I'm in the process of trying to get an interview with her, actually...pipe dream I guess, but worth a shot), she talks a little about the stop motion.

The self-promotion aspect of Myspace is pretty incredible too...you're right, for as much pundit time as Mys pace networking, etc. gets (it was in NY Times last week and there was no Skye, or anyone under like 30 I think), I haven't seen it in action at a high-profile level like this. That's referring more to her official site, since I'd never even seen the Myspace site! Making my way through it and found a few posts from Clay, one asking if she'd received the CG cd.

Still-suffering mom? Well at least she isn't cowriting the songs...Aly and AJ are an argument for a leave the parents at home mindset...bring em in and they (help to) write a fucking TERRIBLE song about CHILD KIDNAPPING. Bleah. Did they not think I was gonna google "C. Michalka" and figure it out? Who are these parents?

Thanks for the pic -- every Friday (give or take) is "Skye Friday" on my supersecretsite...perhaps this will make an appearance...

Dave

Skye was born within 24 hours of Bob Seger...minus a few decades. in baseball they'd say that's her "career stats matching case" etc. kids born in early May are stubborn patient motherfuckers. i'm a May 1st. if bob's prototype follows suit, Skye will be huge around year 2013. and have some cult singles at least as good as "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man," "Lucifer," and "East Side Story."

did you see or do you have the clip of "Tangled Up In Me" performed live with her touring band? it was two notches beyond awesome. most newbie acts get camera fright (exceptions like = X-Tina doing "genie in a bottle" like she had a rocket up her ass or had gotten ass from her hottie latino dancer the night before...actually, #2) their first time on Leno or Letterman doing their first wannbe-hit single live. syke worked both sides of the fence -- "i may be a girly girl but look i'm a badass stomping around once per minute"/bridgette bardot (her giant head and eyes that TV cameras LOVE when she stares them down).

my only query is to wonder size IBM computer she has behind those huge eyes...you can see the gears turning in closeups.

oh, the way to hang out with Skye is easy. take any middle schooler down to the "afternoon performance" which is usually at a middle school (or grade school) the afternoon before the britney arena gig (or wherever). she likes to take kids out for pizza afterwards...a future cult leader i tell ya.

the funny shit on myspace is hidden in the photo section (you probably have to have your own page to drill into the photos, ie "see more photos") because unlike comments, its input box WILL work like a real HTML input screen. if you don't have one, log in as

mike_in_oakland@yahoo.com
666666
ignore the 2,000 saved inbox messages (not counting thousands that have been trashed)
and almost 2,000 comments

and just key in your needed URL
http://www.myspace.com/skyesweetnam

and leave a photo comment somewhere "i don't have a page but metal mike from california said that i oughta read your photo section before i interview you for a magazine bla bla bla. he says all the indicators of future generations are hidden in the photo comments. he's putting me on, y'think?"

you need to read them all. cuz i don't remember what Clay or Johnny might have written.

oh but you NEED to read the angry samaons DAPHNE & CELESTE photo's comments. i actually smoked out a couple of fellow fans!

back to "Hypocrite" -- try 'bubblegum brainaic' as a couplet straddling both ends of the fence. she explained it to someone in a webpage posting somewhere. couple times a year she logs into the message board, welcomes all questions, and answers shitloads of them (on her regular web page)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og1ZtP1Vmy0

.......huh.

sumo cyco's original material is kinda lite-metalcore. not mad at it