Get discovered as an ‘Indie’ artist in 2 easy steps

Here’s a quick, two step guide to getting yourself noticed in the music industry:

1. Get signed to a major label

2. Use that label’s immense PR resources to pretend you’re not on that label.

That’s exactly what Hollywood Records did for Marie Digby. Signed to Disney-owned Hollywood Records back in 2005, her seemingly homemade videos on YouTube have recently created a huge buzz among music fans, led to believe they were watching an untapped talent playing innocently in her living room, trying to get noticed.

It should be noted that Marie is a talented singer/musician who plays guitar and piano and has a great voice. She comes across as a natural performer and the video of her cover of Rhianna’s “Umbrella” has gotten over 900,000 hits on YouTube.

Which leads to another great tactic by Hollywood Records… by selecting her to do a cover of “Umbrella” users searching for a video or the song online would stumble across Digby’s version, feeding off of Rhianna’s sizable fan base.

Hollywood Records did a great job of building awareness for Digby, but is this kind of deception destined to backfire? People tend to want to discover talent organically. Up until recently, Digby’s MySpace page had no label listed. Now that the story has broke, her label is now listed as “major.” There is a danger in people thinking that a real, talented, undiscovered and up-and-coming performer is now a “fake” no matter how talented he/she is. YouTube’s infamous LonelyGirl15 dropped off the pop-culture radar after people found out the Creative Artists Agency was behind her. Let’s see what happens to Marie – one cover song does not a career make.

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Here’s the original story at The Wall Street Journal. [np]