I wish I was a Pop Singer with PR Spin to spare

Now, Sandi Thom. Just what we need, an Aldi KT Tunstall. Only joking. “I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker With Flowers In My Hair” is a great record, the stripped down feel of vocals and drums only makes it really stand out when you hear it on the radio. She’s got a decent voice, if a bit Cher-like, and the video is one of those clever jobs, with the speeded up and slowed down visuals whilst still singing in-synch. All well and good – this should have been enough to get people’s attention. Obviously it wasn’t enough back in October when it was originally released on an independent label, when it reached 55.

Now, the Press Releases have it that because she was a poor old struggling artist, and the cost of touring was prohibitive, she instead did web casts via a £60 digital camera and some streaming help from Creative Tank (not cheap) from her Tooting basement flat which somehow picked up over 70,000 hits. On the basis of this RCA threw a contract her way and the rest is history. What a lovely story.

Not quite. Two minutes on Google and you’ll find some interesting opinions on this PR bollocks. To webcast to that many people is amazingly expensive for a “struggling artist”, so I can’t believe that there wasn’t some major record company support in place at the time. And if there were that many hits, why is there no record of major internet activity around the time of these broadcasts (according to Independent Traffic analysis). So possibility of a bit of PR exaggeration there. Note: she’s already signed a major publishing deal by that point.

RCA head honcho (& ex Bros bass player) Craig Logan, the man who signed Thom, stated: "the only guerrilla marketing tactics employed were when the flyer was sent out to over one million email addresses, which is hardly revolutionary," he said. A million e-mail addresses? That’s a bit excessive. He said the flyer had contained a link to Thom's website, which explained why people monitoring search engine traffic had tracked few searches for Thom. Mr Logan added that the costs of the bandwidth for Thom's webcasts were "absorbed by the streaming company". So RCA must have been involved from early on, otherwise where would a “struggling artist” get access to details like that for viral marketing purposes?

The Times "discovered" that Thom’s PR agency offered thousands of fans free copies of her album in return for their sending messages encouraging people to listen to the single through the social networking website, MySpace.com (bear in mind that's owned by News International, as is the Times).

Frankly there far too much here that doesn’t make sense if you actually push through the PR bullshit. It’s a shame, as the record is damn good but for me the whole thing is a bit disheartening. You’ve got to worry about if Sandi Thom hasn’t actually burnt her bridges in going along with this. It’s the internet age, and it’s very easy to get caught out if you’re making some grand claims. Her PR firm obviously thought this scam would be great and lazy journalists seemed to initially fall for it. However, the same lazy journalists have scoured the web and found enough to evidence from people who actually know what they’re talking about to cast doubt upon these claims and I can’t help but think Thom will suffer in the long run.

Okay, you’ve got a number one single now – have you got enough to follow that up without any hype and probably with the media out to get you?

Read 'Sandi Thom's Tooting'...