Sky Ferreira. The Californian singer first hit my radar about a two years ago when I fell in love with her attitude-laden electro tracks; the kind of stuff we see rock bands make when they need to be commercially viable or they lose their lead guitarist. I’m not naming names.
Tracks like Obsession were featured on shows like The Vampire Diaries, and Sky’s As If-EP offered more of the same sonically frothy but tongue-in-cheek pop. Labelled as the next big thing, it seemed like her record label had her packaged as the next Kesha or something, and Ferreira wanted out.
The raw vocals on Sky’s cover of Animal by Miike Snow left many wondering why Ferreira didn’t just let her voice do the talking. The sultry singer must have been thinking the same. Just when her debut was set to be released, sh*t hit the fan and Sky wrote off four years’ worth of material that wasn’t ‘her’ anymore and started from the ground up.
Finally, after another round at recording she’s produced the glorious Ghost-EP boasting five brilliant tracks for us to listen to while we wait on tenterhooks for her full debut. Sad Dream rolls along in apathetic, smoky vocals that showcase Ferreira’s true talent. Lost In My Bedroom is the most ‘electro-pop’ song on there, evocative of her former style. Ghost, has a ‘Video-Games’ vibe as it trips along lazily; allowing a small breather before Red Lips. A mix between The XX and The Runaways, the fourth song promises the ‘provocative’ Ferreira that the media like to portray her as. However, track five, Everything Is Embarrassing, is by far the best. Keeping her synthy-pop sound of the previous As-If EP, Sky’s vocals still pour emotively through. “I believe in everything, everything that could have been, you could have been my anything, now everything’s embarrassing.”
Years of difficulties with record labels trying to pigeonhole the twenty-year-old’s sound have finally ended. With her latest effort she seems to have decided her direction for herself. Losing the dub-step that clouded her classically trained vocals may have slowed her sound down, but I expect it to have the opposite effect on her iTunes sales.