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Music

Shingy, AOL's Crazy-Haired "Digital Prophet," Is Also a Mediocre Singer-Songwriter

Thank you, Shingy, for hours of entertainment.

David Shing is an interesting character. He is a forty-something year-old man who hails from Australia, looks like several Tim Burton characters combined into one body, and works at AOL as their in-house "Digital Prophet." According to a recent New Yorker profile of Shing, who self-identifies as "Shingy," being AOL's Digital Prophet involves sketching bears on iPads, going to conferences throughout the world, refurnishing the office of AOL CEO Tim Armstrong to feature zero desks but several leather armchairs arranged in a circle, and also interviewing Kevin Spacey about disruption.

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On his Twitter, Shingy describes himself as an "accidental singer-songwriter." So, I googled "shingy soundcloud," and sure enough I found a soundcloud page containing an EP entitled Love Notes that was made by the Beast himself. According to a note posted on Shingy's official site, Love Notes is, "An album I wrote and recorded in two weeks in secret for my babe." It is in no way actually good, but it's definitely not bad, in that Shingy can clearly play the guitar and sing songs in a voice that doesn't make you want to shoot yourself. "Little Darling," evidently the "banger" of the set, has racked up over 1,000 plays since August 2012! More than anything, these songs serve only to further the mystery of the eccentric and possibly totally full-of-shit David Shing.

Listen to Love Notes below, and listen to another of Shingy's EP titled Spy here at his official site.

Now that you've taken in Shingy's music, watch a video of him rocking on a guitar that says "beat the internet" on the neck.

Follow Drew Millard on Twitter.