In 2019, Dublin teenager Saibh Skelly started to upload her busking sessions to YouTube, starting with her cover of Billie Eilish’s ‘When The Party’s Over’. However, it wasn’t until later that year and the investment in a video camera, that she noticed something interesting was happening. Her home recording videos were gaining popularity. “It was growing steadily,” Saibh adds “but when I got to 10,000 subscribers, I thought... that's actually a lot of people!”
Saibh’s popularity really started to take-off during lockdown as new fans - old, young and worldwide - warmed to her warm, unassuming personality and her unfeigned enthusiasm for the modern pop songbook; covering everything from Anne-Marie to Lewis Capaldi. 10,000 subscribers quickly became 60,000 fans.
In the spring of 2022, Saibh Skelly's debut EP - 'Undercover Heartbreak' - which rounded up her versions of sad songs that had helped her through the pandemic, charted Top 10 in the official Irish national album chart. Her single 'Grow Up' (Saibh's first original song release) came out in the autumn of 2022. The track was produced in Dublin by Cormac Butler, best known for his work with Gavin James and The Academic, and mixed by Peter Ashmore (Wyvern Lingo, David Keenan).
Saibh kicked off 2023 with the thrilling, uplifting 'So What?', a positive-vibes-only bop. ‘So What?’ was another airplay hit for Ms. Skelly, consolidating her position as one of Ireland’s rising stars for 2023.
After 16.5 million radio impacts, 3.5 million views on YouTube, 3.67 million views on TikTok and 2 million streams, Saibh released her new single ‘Superficial’ in March, before her first EP of self-written songs ‘SAIBH X FIVE’ comes out on 21st April.
Saibh adds: "Social media can put pressure on us to make our relationships appear to be picture perfect. People put so much time and effort into this, that they can ignore what's going on behind the camera. We’ve all found ourselves reminiscing over old photos, forgetting about the bad times but we have to eventually realise that sometimes it’s all just superficial!"
