STLPR0%
Singer Skylar Townsend found her voice with help from friends in the St. Louis country scene 7%
By Darrious Varner0% Miya Norfleet0%
4/16/2026, 9:00:00 PM
Topics: Radio Episode
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Hasty Generalization, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Attempt to Sell a Product or Service as the most egregious example at 11.2% saturation with 83 hits. Analysis detected 490 faulty-reasoning hits from 743 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22.9% and a BS Rank of 7% (20,489 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 93.60% of the article peer group.
Skylar Finan’s love for singing country music began as a private joy.
As a little girl, she would sing along quietly in the car to the Chicks album that was stuck in her dad’s CD player.
That early love for music stayed with her.
It eventually led her to Yaqui’s on Cherokee – a jazz, wine and pizza bar – where she handles the music booking.
There, Finan found herself surrounded by musicians who pushed her to get onstage and share her voice with others.
“I had my debut performance [at Yaqui’s] with my friend Ryan Koenig,” Finan said.
“He is one of the people that was like, ‘You should do this.’
It was the scariest thing ever.
I have terrible stage fright.”
On this episode of St.
Louis on the Air, Finan shared how her community encouraged her to create her debut album “Hit the Ground Runnin’” and perform as a singer/songwriter under the name Skylar Townsend.
Townsend was surprised when a friend came to her wanting to bring her demos to life.
After a bit of convincing, she accepted the offer and began recording.
“Hit the Ground Runnin’” — the title track of the album — is one of seven tracks from these sessions.
Her growth as an artist during the recording sessions echoed the growth of the home studio where she worked on the album.
“The first track that we recorded, I was singing in the water heater closet,” she said.
“And by the time we were done with the album, we're sitting here [in a studio with] full equipment, much nicer stuff.”
The track was written for her by her friend Kellie Everett of the Hooten Hallers while the band was on tour.
To create the song, Everett “listened to music that she calls ‘Skylar songs,’ which is predominantly like ‘90s country music,” Townsend said.
“She sat in the van and listened to ‘90s country music for six hours straight on their tour, and ended up writing that song.
I think it might be a little autobiographical for her, but I think she was also using parallels to our friendship and how she knows me.
And I just think that was really, really neat, that she sat there and wrote a song for me to perform.”
Townsend, a self-proclaimed “earworm songwriter,” said her friends often have her song “Honest” stuck in their heads.
The song deals with themes of self-actualization and “knowing when something has run its course.”
With “Hit the Ground Runnin,’” Townsend set out to make country music that audiences want to dance to — something she wishes she saw more often from local concertgoers.
“It's a St.
Louis thing, honestly.
When you go to country shows here, people don't dance,” she said.
“In Austin and in Nashville, if you go out to see live music, people are partner-dancing.
Here in that scene, that does not happen.
I wish that people would dance more.
It's not so scary.
It's fun to move to.”
Townsend’s debut album was released last November after about four years of work.
She said the responses from friends and new fans have been immensely positive.
“Honestly, I've been shocked and taken aback,” she said.
“I'm really, really proud of myself, and everybody that's in my circle, and they're all really proud of me too.
So it's just like I've had nothing but positive responses about it, and it's been the most surprising part.
I was not expecting people to like it that much.”
To hear more about Finan’s album and her thoughts on the country music scene in St.
Louis, listen to “St.
Louis on the Air” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or click the play button below.
“St.
Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St.
Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region.
This program was co-produced by Miya Norfleet and Darrious Varner.
This show is produced by Miya Norfleet , Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer.
Layla Halilbasic is our production assistant.
The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
Calling all St.
Louis-area artists and music fans: “St.
Louis on the Air” wants your recommendations.
Help us discover and feature musical talent in the region by filling out this Google Form.
All genres are welcome.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Skylar Finan's name.
Speakers
2speakers41%attributed speech441writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
76%flagged-word coverageSkylar Townsend
264 attributed words87% of attributed speech51% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.