THOM: SPAMMER?

Another day, another denial from the Sandi Thom camp that her overnight rise to fame was, in fact, an orchestrated media ploy. This time, it's her label boss Craig Logan:

Logan wrote in Music Week that he wished to "correct some of the myths and assertions in the media with some simple, honest facts".

"The only guerrilla marketing tactics employed were when the flyer was sent out to over one million email addresses, which is hardly revolutionary," he said.

He said the flyer had contained a link to Thom's website, which explained why people monitoring search engine traffic had tracked few searches for Thom.

Mr Logan added that the costs of the bandwidth for Thom's webcasts were "absorbed by the streaming company".

"Fact: Sandi tried the old way of building a community and it didn't quite work for her. The new way has."

He also said: "Sandi Thom is a great artist, which is why RCA signed her."

Okay, let's get it out the way: Yes, that Craig Logan, the one out of Bros.

Now, let's assume this is truth, and focus instead on the second question: they sent out a million emails? Who to? Are RCA admitting they built Sandi Thom on the back of a spam campaign? Or did they have access to a million email addresses which had agreed to receive this sort of marketing message?

And if they did, which sort of young girl working on her own in a basement would have access to a million email addresses which have opted-in to get messages about winsome singer-songwriters? Especially one who had - by her people's own admission - failed to build a community already?

music sandi thom spam