Billie Eilish. Lorde. Tones And I. Blue King Brown. silverchair. TripleJ’s Unearthed High. All examples of teenaged musicians who stepped out from the confines placed on them by society and demonstrated talent that took the world by storm. Many of them continue to do so and have yet to turn 21!
With all this in mind, 17 year old Shelby Merchant has been discovered, mentored, and brought to my attention by US-music business-insider and my long-time friend gilli moon. “I love her energy”, gilli says. “I want to share her to the world.”
Shelby started uploading material to her YouTube channel when she was just 15. Like bands from my era, and it’s obvious still a thing, she was doing cover-songs while honing her original material. The covers on her channel include songs from ABBA, Taylor Swift, Toto, Billie Eilish, Adriana Grande, among many, many others, with her first original song being uploaded for Christmas last year, coming across so Kate Micucci with her true feelings about the holidays. But the reason we’re here today is flammable, the song she’s selected as the debut single for her forthcoming album “Way Past 17“.
Wow!! Straight out of the blocks with a full rockin’-band sound, Shelby demonstrates a power that we have seen in all of the abovementioned artists, and then some! Reminiscent, for me, of Patience Hodgson and The Grates’ Silence Is Golden, this song would sound just as awesome from a big outdoors festival stage as it would in a small pub-venue, inciting pogoing as soon as that hook kicks in. As with the other artists (and I’m sure they have all heard this themselves) it belies her age!
“This young and extremely talented artist is a pleasure to work with” says gilli in the press release for the single. It’s a pleasure to listen to flammable as well and, with a new single coming out later this month and the album next month, I am looking very much forward to the pleasure of hearing this all for myself!