How stupid do the major labels think their customers are? The Wall Street Journal‘s front page detailed a plan to deceive customers by passing off a signed talent, a 24-year-old singer and guitarist named Marié Digby, as a DIY YouTube using amateur cover-artist trying to get a deal.
Are the labels so bereft of ideas and hard up for the good old days when they printed money and screwed the customers and the artists that they are now willing to squander any shred of remaining good will they might still have with fans, well, at least the ones they haven’t sued? For an unknown cover artist? I mean where is the frikkin upside here? Are they trying to build a more justifiable moral case for musical piracy?
Country music’s soul remains it’s authenticity. Nashville has been very effective peddling pop-country hat acts to people that wouldn’t know Hank Williams from Robbie Williams, but this is a level of calculated fraud that would embarrass even the most hard-bitten music row veteran.
Good for the Journal for exposing this sham. I hope this level of coverage of business misconduct doesn’t diminish under the new ownership by media mogul and FOX News steward, Rupert Murdoch. I won’t be holding my breath.