Cavetown (musician)

Skinner began his YouTube channel in November 2012 and uploaded his first video, an original song named Haunted Lullaby, in October 2013.[13][14] The first song Skinner wrote and recorded was Rain in 2013.[15] Soon after, Skinner began releasing music to Bandcamp with his first album, Everything Is Made of Clouds, at the age of 14.[16][17] Skinner released Gd Vibes, Nervous Friends // Pt. 1, Balance (as brother) and Everything is Made of Stars on Bandcamp over the following two years.[18][19][20][21] Critics expressed that they felt "the acceptance of ignorance" on Gd Vibes.[22] Skinner released his debut single "This Is Home" in August 2015,[23] before releasing his debut self-titled album in November 2015.[24] Critics described the album cavetown as "an eclectic mix of acoustic and electronic".[25] Skinner continued to publish covers of songs onto his YouTube channel from artists such as Pinegrove, Twenty One Pilots and Joji.[11]

In 2016, Skinner released his second studio album, 16/04/16.[26] The album includes a mix of "warm, melodic bedroom pop" and "lo-fi indie rock".[1] The album was dedicated to Skinner's childhood friend, Jack Graham, who died of leukaemia on the album's titular date. 60% of the album's proceeds were donated to Cancer Research UK.[27]

In April 2017, whilst still at Sixth Form College, Skinner reached the final of the Cambridge Band Competition, winning both Best Acoustic Act and the Kimberley Rew Award for Songwriting, and went on to play at Strawberry Fair in June 2017. In 2018, he released his third album, Lemon Boy. As of June 2020, the album's title track has amassed 47 million streams on Spotify and 13 million views on YouTube.[28][29]

Cavetown in Vienna in August 2019

In 2019, Skinner released five split singles which were later compiled into Animal Kingdom, a mixtape of ten tracks including covers and original singles with guest appearances from Sidney Gish, Simi, Chloe Moriondo and Spookyghostboy.[30][31][32] He produced the single "prom dress" by mxmtoon, which has gained over 8 million streams on Spotify and has been used in over 100,000 videos on the video-sharing platform TikTok.[33][34][35] The single was featured on mxmtoon's debut album the masquerade, which was also fully produced by Skinner.[36] Skinner performed on the Acoustic Stage at Victorious Festival in August 2019.[37] He signed under Sire Records in 2019 where he released the single "Telescope" ahead of his upcoming album, later announced as Sleepyhead.[30] Skinner embarked on a series of sold-out worldwide headlining tours in October 2019. He played on tour at 31 venues in the US and 15 venues in the UK over the space of four months.[30] He was joined by Hunny and mxmtoon for a few shows in the UK tour,[38][39] as well as Field Medic and Chloe Moriondo for a few shows in the US tour.[30] In October 2019, Skinner announced his headlining tour along Australia's east coast which took place in January 2020.[40]

In 2020, Skinner released his major label debut album Sleepyhead.[9] In May 2020, he appeared on the Recording Academy's Sessions series in support of MusiCares.[41][42]

Skinner is known for his "gentle ukulele ballads" and "melodic bedroom pop".[43]

As lead artist[57]

As featured artist[57]

• Everything Is Made of Clouds (2013)[17]
• Gd Vibes (2014)[18]
• Nervous Friends // Pt. 1 (2015)[19]
• Balance (2015)[20][59]
• Everything Is Made of Stars (2015)[21]