Marie Digby is a fake!
September 9th, 2007 by shinzu
Well.. sorta. An article came out in the Wall Street Journal saying that Marie Digby actually got signed BEFORE making the youtube video by a Hollywood record label. The agent knew nobody would youtube search ‘Marie Digby’ so they had her do cover songs so she would get hits.
Her video onYouTube is actually a professional one. To make matters even worse Star 98.7 did not truly ‘discover’ her on YouTube, but that the record label and Star were in collusion together to get her popular.
Ms. Digby’s simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit “Umbrella” has been featured on MTV’s program “The Hills” and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.’s Hollywood Records label declared: “Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records.”
What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of “Umbrella” to iTunes and radio stations.
and further more
As Ms. Digby’s star rose, other media outlets played along. When Los Angeles adult-contemporary station KYSR-FM, which calls itself “Star 98.7,” interviewed Ms. Digby in July, she and the disc jockey discussed her surprising success. “We kind of found her on YouTube,” the DJ, known as Valentine, said. Playing the lucky nobody, Ms. Digby said: “I’m usually the listener calling in, you know, just hoping that I’m going to be the one to get that last ticket to the Star Lounge with [pop star] John Mayer!” The station’s programming executives now acknowledge they had booked Ms. Digby’s appearance through Hollywood Records, and were soon collaborating with the label to sell “Umbrella” as a single on iTunes.
“We did discover this artist through YouTube,” says KYSR Program Director Charese Fruge. The DJ couldn’t be reached for comment.
Original Article Link:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118903788315518780.html