The past two weeks I have spent time listening to a lot of music. That’s not different from other two-week periods, but this time I listened to new artists. That also is not something new since I have featured many young artists throughout my eight years of writing for Weekly Music Commentary. However, this time I listened to strictly young female vocalists on the cusp of breaking big into the music industry. I love that period in an artist’s career. Young budding star Sabrina Claudio is a great example of why I feel that the music industry has a good future ahead. Readers who might be lamenting because you feel there are no artists like those of the past, sit back and allow me to introduce a young singer/songwriter you might grow to love.
Sabrina Claudio was born September 19, 1996 and is an American singer and songwriter who grew up in Miami and is half-Cuban and half-Puerto Rican. She moved to Los Angeles to broaden her music career. For her, that move was a wise choice. Within a two-year period, Claudio has arrived and started to gain critical acclaim.
Of course, the artists of our day have leveraged social media (Facebook, Twitter and more) to further music and to help grow a fan base. Sabrina Claudio made effective use of SoundCloud as well. Like so many young artists of today she began by recording and releasing videos of covers before transitioning to original tracks. As I prepared for this week I thought about how Sabrina Claudio made good use of SoundCloud. What exactly is SoundCloud?
SoundCloud was established in Berlin in August 2007 by Swedish sound designer Alexander Ljung and Swedish artist Eric Wahlforss, and the web site was launched in late 2008. It was originally intended to allow musicians to collaborate by facilitating the sharing and discussion of recordings, but later transformed into a publishing tool for music distribution. According to Wired magazine, soon after its inception, SoundCloud began to challenge the dominance of MySpace as a platform for musicians to distribute their music. Since its beginning, SoundCloud has grown rapidly. In July 2013, SoundCloud had 40 million registered users and listens were growing at a rate of 20 million per month.
On March 29, 2016, SoundCloud unveiled SoundCloud Go, a subscription-based music streaming service; the service provides an ad-free experience, offline playback, and integrates licensed music from major labels into the existing, user-uploaded content of the service. Co-founder Eric Wahlforss stated that this aspect would help to differentiate SoundCloud Go from other music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, as it technically provides a larger total library of songs than competing services, with a higher degree of diversity in its content. In February 2017, SoundCloud launched a mid-range subscription tier named SoundCloud Go, that allows users to remove ads and listen offline for $5 per month. The original version, which was renamed SoundCloud Go+, allows access to over 150 million songs, offline playback, no ads, no previews, and premium music tracks for $10 per month.
Over the course of 2016, Claudio released several singles, including “Runnin’ Thru Lovers,” “Orion’s Belt,” and “Confidently Lost”. These songs would form part of her EP, Confidently Lost which she originally released independently on SoundCloud. The EP received a wide release in March 2017 via SC Entertainment. In May 2017, she released a single, “Unravel Me,” off of an upcoming project due to be released later in 2017. The song would go on to peak at #22 on the Billboard Twitter Emerging Artists chart. She released another single for that project entitled, “Belong to You,” in July 2017 which peaked at #2 on the same chart. Sabrina Claudio was on her way toward a career in music and bigger things.
On October 5, 2017, Claudio’s début full-length digital mixtape, About Time, was officially released. From October through November 2017, Apple Music promoted Claudio as their Up Next artist, a series that focuses on breakthrough artists by documenting their journey, inspiration and influences through exclusive interviews, live performances and a mini-documentary. I listened to About Time and viewed part of the interviews via Apple Music. They both helped me understand a lot about young Sabrina Claudio.
She spoke about something that I wanted to know first. I have featured so many young artists who make music that sounds like the experiences and sounds of young artists. Sabrina Claudio has a very mature sound. Why? Her interview for Fader magazine explained it well. “I don’t write from personal experience, just because I haven’t lived enough to be able to do that. A lot of these songs that you guys hear are songs of the women and men in my life who have experienced a lot of things. I have close friends who I sit with and we go over what they’ve been through in their lives. Most of these songs are stories of people who I really care for in their lives. The songs are so personal to me in that way and I can relay them in a way where I’ve gone through them.”
Her response led me into a conversation with a friend about children who are raised around more adults than children. Usually this results in a child with adult sensitivities. You get a young person who expresses him or herself in a way that seems older than their young years. I have many children in my family that fall into that category. Sabrina Claudio certainly communicates through her song lyrics in that way. That’s why I encourage older music fans to download or stream her music. I think you might find a young artist who will give you music you will understand and appreciate.
As I mentioned I listened to Sabrina Claudio’s mixtape appropriately titled About Time. It delivers well and demonstrates that the young singer is prepared to bring us very good music in the future. Get ready! Sabrina Claudio is a name that might be recognized to music fans worldwide very soon.