Marie Digby checked in with fans on her blog at MySpace (@mariedigby) on Tuesday (November 13). She writes:

To anyone who wasn’t able to get tickets to my upcoming show at the Troubadour.. There’s some good news!!

My entire show will be webcast on my MySpace page as well as on uStream.tv ! So you will be able to watch the whole thing as if you are there. I mean, minus the occasional drunk who spills beer all over you and the whole ordeal of finding parking ;)

So if you want to see the show from your house, just make sure to visit my MySpace page or UStream on Friday night. The show begins at 8 but I will be going on closer to 10pm.

This is a first but should be pretty cool. That’s it for now !

xo

marie’

Marie Digby posted another blog to fans on her MySpace page (@mariedigby) on Sunday (September 9) in reaction to the Wall Street Journal article questioning her credibility.

“My MySpace and my YouTube (to this day) does not say Hollywood Records,” she writes. “Why? Because I started both on my own and I manage every aspect of it. Every email, every blog, every video… that is me. My MySpace was created in 2004, a year before I was even close to being signed. I created the YouTube account so that I could post videos of myself singing both covers and original songs. Hollywood Records does not define who I am a musician. It should not make you like me more, make you like me less, or make you listen to me differently in any way. I want you to listen to my music, that’s it. If you wanted to know if I was signed or not you could do one of many things - 1. Put my name in Google or Wikipedia 2. Ask me, email me 3. Come to any of my shows over the last 5 months and receive a free CD sampler with the Hollywood Records Logo. It’s no secret, there is no deception here. Oh and lastly, I never once had on any of my pages - ‘Unsigned’. Now that, would have been lying.”

In wake of the Marie Digby expose by the Wall Street Journal, insinuating that her YouTube success was the project of a clever marketing campaign initiated by her record label, I reviewed her interview with Valentine & Lisa Foxx of Star 98.7 in Los Angeles on August 2nd. This is after the station had been playing her cover of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ and the night after her first television performance on ‘Last Call with Carson Daly’.

During the segment, Marie was never asked if she had a record deal, while the WSJ article seems to suggest she was obligated to volunteer the info. If Digby came up with the acoustic covers and the idea to post them online, why should she suddenly give her label any credit after they had been basically ignoring her in favor of their big time artists Hilary Duff or Aly & AJ? Lisa told her, “Dan our music director was surfing the net” and had discovered the YouTube ‘Umbrella’ performance. Marie then responded, “Oh, is that how [he] found it, I’m so lucky.” It’s logical that the LA radio station playing the track caught the ear of Carson or someone on ‘Last Call’ - also taped in LA, explaining how he may have discovered her about the same time period. The WSJ article stated Diana Miller, ‘Last Call’ music booker, said she booked the singer through Hollywood Records’ public-relations department, suggesting it was ‘Last Call’ who initiated the interest.

The Journal also took pains to note that Digby put “none” in her MySpace profile, but again if you’re not actively being promoted, if you have no idea Hollywood Records will release your material (besides ‘Fool’ on the ‘Girl Next’ soundtrack), should you feel obligated to mention it? The psychology behind the omission seems to come from an understandable resentment over being signed by a record label who hasn’t released hardly any of your material for 18 months and showed no signs of doing so rather than marketing strategy. Besides, it was listed on her first Wikipedia entry on August 21st, submitted by “this guy from Finland” Chekkie, apparently before this WSJ probe began.

So unless the Lisa Foxx and Digby were both lying as part of some grand conspiracy initiated by a Hollywood Records marketer, it’s probably safe to say Star 98.7 music director Dan’s web surfing habits had more to do with the mainstream success Marie is currently enjoying, and not a record label that had her on the back burner and could have easily dropped her before she decided to post the YouTube clips. In fact the real story is that in the rigid world of top 40 radio programming in an era of media consolidation, a major radio station gave spins to a local artist with no solid record release plans in the pipeline or no market testing.

Audio of the Valentine & Lisa Foxx interview at akamai.net has since been removed.

Marie Digby posted the following message on her blog at MySpace (@mariedigby) on Wednesday (August 5):

Media 101

I think today will be the first ever blog that I write … as I’m furious. fuming. angry beyond words.

Thank god for blogs because I can say whatever the F.. I want to .

So basically, I got a call recently that some schmuck from the Wall Street Journal wanted to do an article about me. He interviewed some people at my label and then asked to talk to me on the phone. I talked to this guy for an hour, told him every detail of my journey so far in music…

Here’s Lesson 1 for me in Media - The writer will use whatever quote he wants of yours to make it fit his ‘angle’. This loser was desperate for a good story… he knew what he wanted to write before he ever even talked to me.

The guy’s angle is this : that I am a complete phony and fake and a pawn of my record label in some brilliant marketing scheme.

(more…)

The Wall Street Journal has learned that Marie Digby, who shot to fame after recording a cover of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’ and posting it on YouTube, all while claiming to be an unsigned artist, had actually been signed by Hollywood Records in 2005. Digby explained that she didn’t mention her record label on her web sites because “I didn’t feel like it was something that was going to make people like me.” Ken Bunt, Hollywood Records’ senior vice president for marketing who helped devise Ms. Digby’s campaign, told the Journal, “There are significant challenges in breaking new artists now, but there are also amazing opportunities. People get so mired in the difficulties they don’t say, ‘What opportunities does online present?’ This is a great example of an opportunity.” Read more.

Marie Digby was in the studio with Valentine & Lisa Foxx of Star 98.7 in Los Angeles on Thursday (August 2). Digby talked about rehearsing in the bathroom, performing the previous night for ‘Last Call with Carson Daly’, how she was discovered by the station on YouTube, her tennis skills, working on an album to release next year, signing a deal with Hollywood Records, and more. She then performed her acoustic cover of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’.

The interview and performance audio at akamai.net has since been removed.