Artist: Sandi Thom
Genre(s):
Rock
Pop
Discography:
Smile... It Confuses People (Sampler)
Year: 2006
Tracks: 10
Smile... It Confuses People
Year: 2006
Tracks: 10
Wish I was A Punk Rocker (Promo)
Year:
Tracks: 10
Neo-folk-rock singer/songwriter Sandi Thom generated promotion and contention when she landed a major-label record sign up on the potency of a three-week lively webcast series beamed crossways the Internet from the basement of her flat. Born Alexandria Thom in Banff, Scotland, on August 11, 1981, she exhausted her teen old age in a report dance orchestra dubbed the Residents (not to be disoriented with the eyeball-masked avant rock candy eccentrics of the same identify) ahead attending Aberdeen-based Robert Gordon's College. While attention the Liverpool Institute of the Performing Arts -- the so-called "Fame Academy" founded by Paul McCartney -- Thom performed with the gospel consort Love and Joy; upon graduating in 2003 she returned to Scotland, working as a sitting singer and singing on commercial jingles.
A Glasgow gig brought Thom to the attention of the fledgeling indie label Viking Legacy, and she issued her debut single, "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker (With Flowers in My Hair)," in October 2005. The record book earned airplay on BBC Radio 2 merely the isaac M. Singer remained near unknown, maintaining a unrelenting tour schedule that included a stretch supporting the Proclaimers on a abbreviated U.K. duty tour. According to legend, Thom was returning from a lance in South Wales when her car stony-broke down, sparking the idea to temporarily adjourn from the road and advertize her music via more improper methods -- she purchased a webcam for £60 and began planning a serial of 21 alive gigs over as many consecutive nights, circularise from the comforts of her Tooting flat and uncommitted dislodge over her site, world Wide Web.sandithom.com.
Launched on February 24, 2006, and streamed by professional hosting company Streaming Tank, the 21 Nights from Tooting series premiered to just 70 viewing audience -- a night later on, however, the sum up jumped to 670, and by the eye of hebdomad deuce the chalk up counted 162,000, with viewing audience hailing from the U.S., Russia, and the Middle East. The tender media frenzy prompted major-label execs to set about literally knocking on Thom's door, and in April she recognised an offer from Sony's RCA subsidiary, airing the existent signing of the deal via webcast as well. But Thom's seeming grassroots success brought with it a number of questions and controversies -- later on all, she was no unknown, with a director, a PR firm, and Viking Legacy all working on her behalf prior to the webcast serial publication. Moreover, it was later on revealed that Streaming Tank executives were friends of Thom's handler, Ian Brown, and in agreement to cover the webcast production costs in their entireness. Some critics regular supercharged that Sony orchestrated the case in its entireness, a charge the label denied.
RCA re-released "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" that May, and on June 4, 2006, the single topped the U.K. pop charts, displacement Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" (non coincidently the number 1 vocal to reach phone number one purely on the forte of Internet downloads). Thom's debut LP, Smile...It Confuses People, arrived at retail a day afterward "Punk Rocker" went number unmatchable, and quickly pretended the top position on the British albums charts as intimately.
