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The pundits said that despite the popularity of online audio files and music fans penance for swapping them, MP3 would never find it's own star: an artist who "made the big time" by starting in the unknown internet universe rather than traditional means. Although many music artists find their music being downloaded in mass quantities, 99% of them are already established stars, and for an artist to become one using primarily online marketing was, and remains, almost unheard of. This is what makes the recent success of pop vocalist Fisher so amazing: a music artist gaining fans on the weight of her music and not the marketing behind it.
Fans can trace Fisher's emergence into the scene back to 1998, when the artist snagged a spot on the motion picture soundtrack for Great Expectations, starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. Her contribution "Breakable" caught the attention of many, and won her fans even before she released her first full album.
Despite strong performances at several stops of Sarah McLachlan's Lilth Fair touring festival, it wasn't until 1999 that Fisher released her first EP One on the internet. Contradicting traditional practice, Fisher gave her songs away for free, yet this only fuelled her popularity. In March 2000, Fisher achieved an improbable milestone of sorts by claiming three of the top ten spots on MP3.com pop charts, rising above thousands of similar artists trying to achieve recognition.
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It was perhaps a complete fluke that drove the nail down on Fisher's ensured success. A real-world radio station decided one ordinary afternoon to play "I Will Love You", a song it had recently downloaded. The song, with its quiet intensity, touched a nerve with listeners, who swamped the station with phone calls and helped pushed up the release of Fisher's major label debut "True North" (Farmclub.com/Interscope).
All told the new artist saw her numerous tracks downloaded over 2,000,000 times, a number which is almost unheard of for online artists. Perhaps the greatest chapter of the Fisher story is the chapter yet to come. Even if ultimately she doesn't achieve mass commercial popularity, Fisher will always be remembered for two reasons: as the first artist to break beyond the online barrier, and the artist who opened the doors for other artists to follow.
Erin Boyle, CanEHdian.com. Copyright 2000.
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