Directory:Derek Michael Sheldon
Template:Infobox Internet celebrity
Derek Michael Sheldon (born April 29, 1981), is an American blogger and music personality. His blog, worldasiderseeit.com,is known for posts covering items about musicians, music and music celebrities. He is also known for changing the names of musicians he dislikes -ie- Amy Whinehouse (Amy Whineyhouse) Taylor Swift (Taylor Boobless Swift) and Madonna. He was the first music blogger to change the Twitterview to a pictorial format via the Twitter time line in his posts. Derek Michael Sheldon interviews musicians on Twitter and posts Twitter music flashbacks everyday branding the #musicflashback hashtag. He currently is the leading blogger to use the micro-blogging site to deliver music news and information. The worldasiderseeit.com was the first music site to leak information on Whitney Houston's new album "I Look To You." in 2009. His blog has garnered positive and negative attention for its attitude, its active "bashing and support" of musicians he likes or dislikes. Derek Michael Sheldon has exclusively covered works by Canadian singer Jann Arden, Dawn Langstroth; Anne Murray's daughter and English musician Imogen Heap.
Early and personal life
Sheldon was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to parents Michael Charles Sheldon (deceased) and Sheila Ann DaDamio. He graduated from Fleetwood Area High School and pursued his BA in music and psychology from Albright College and University of Southern California. During his junior year in high school an accident caused the death of his grandparents where he received a large sum of money. In 1999 Sheldon moved to Beverly Hills, California, and pursued his life long dream to be a screen actor. He attributed his desire to act on the basis he grew up on classic movies his grandfather taped for him as a child, wanting to give back to such actors that changed his life. Moving to Los Angeles California not knowing a single person he signed with talent agent Dale Garrick who discovered Faye Dunaway. [1] After some brief success with commercials he abandoned his hopes of a screen career and returned back to Reading, Pennsylvania. Sheldon's music background came from his father Michael Sheldon who was a professional drummer in California, working with groups such as The Who and David Browne. Sheldon is a classical trained vocalist studying with Jeffrey Lentz, opera singer, Grammy Award nominee.[2][3]
The World As I Der See It!
After returning from Los Angeles, California in 2002, and before beginning his blogging career, Sheldon attempted to work as a musician starting a band. He worked with music teacher and producer Ronnie Cremer, one Taylor Swift's guitar teachers.[4] He also briefly worked as a property manager for a Reading property management company, and was a freelance writer for local music publications. He says he started blogging "because I loved music, I knew I would no longer have a career as a musician, so I said to myself I refuse to leave this industry completely."
Upon losing his professional job and the band less than lucrative, he created The World As I Der See It! Sheldon started out covering information he knew internally about the business and his contacts. He did a point by point article explaining in great detail why Cyndi Lauper was greater than Madonna.[5] He was one of the first bloggers to report on Paula Abdul's release on American Idol almost 3 hours before the AP wire received it. [6] Sheldon also covered the James Cabooter scandal with Imogen Heap's new album Ellipse which was posted on Ebay before its release.[7].His rise to fame began when he exclusively received information from an undisclosed source providing track listings on Whitney Houston's new album "I Look To You".[8] His website received over 55,000k hits in one day after the post was released. He continues to post articles about Jann Arden, and Imogen Heap daily remaining in close contact with them. His website is currently ranked 173,000 in the United States of America and 868,000 in the world.[9] Derek Michael Sheldon continues to use the micro-blogging platform Twitter to release his information, interview, garner feedback from his readers, while posting images of the "tweets" in his posts.
References
- ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Dale Garrick International". [1]. Retrieved 2009-09-28. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Classical Music News". [2]. 2004-12-04. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Jeffery Lentz Highlights". [3]. 2007-04-15. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Who taught Taylor Swift Guitar". [4]. Retrieved 2009-09-29. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"A A Primadonna Comparison World As I Der See It!". [5]. 2009-06-13. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Paula Will Not Return to Idol, she Says World As I Der See It!". [6]. 2009-06-26. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Imogen Heap Ebay Arrested, World As I Der See It!". [7]. 2009-06-06. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Press Release Whitney Houston". [8]. 2009-06-14. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Alexa World As I Der See It!". alexa. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
