From MySpace to Mass Media

This New York Times piece about singer/songwriter Ingrid Michaelson is not the first time she's received major newspaper coverage. This article, like others in the past, plays up the "discovered on MySpace" angle, which is a variation on the old "discovered artist" myth. What they don't tell you is how normal her story is for a musician--especially a songwriter. Well, except for the mass market success part. They also don't tell you that being "discovered" on MySpace takes a lot of work, and a few very very good songs. But this is what journalists want to write.

(The other interesting thing about this NYT article is the prominent advertising for CHANTIX, a pharmaceutical whose name implied it was some sort of panacea for singers. I eagerly clicked on the ad, only to learn that it's for quitting smoking. Although that's not bad advice for singers.)

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Ms. Michaelson’s climb out of obscurity started, as is so often the case these days, on the Internet. Now she is known to many “Grey’s Anatomy” fans for her quirky, heartfelt songs that were featured over the past year on the ABC television series. After a cross-country music tour, she is performing on Wednesday at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan, and she pointed out that the concert sold out a month ago without any advertising. (She has added a concert on Feb. 15 at Webster Hall.)

Not bad for someone who, until May, was teaching in an after-school theater program in the Stapleton neighborhood of Staten Island, where she still lives with her parents, a dog and a pet rabbit in the house she has inhabited since she was born.

“It’s so uncool, it’s cool,” said her mother, Elizabeth Egbert, the executive director of the Staten Island Museum.

Ms. Michaelson has inherited her mother’s dry wit, which she combines with youthful enthusiasm and a penchant for funky eyeglasses. “Apparently my glasses make me sound just like Lisa Loeb,” she deadpanned, alluding to articles that compared her to Ms. Loeb, a well-known singer.