Kate Walsh Hits UK Charts without iPod or Record Deal

Kate Walsh is a 23-year-old classically trained pianist who doesn’t even own an iPod. She doesn’t have a record deal either. What she does have is the number one download album on the iTunes UK Chart. She recorded it in a friend’s bedroom (hence the name “Tim’s House” for the album). For a few hundred pounds, she has effectively destroyed the record industry’s business model. If it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else, but good for her all the same.

Musically, she’s got more in common with Joni Mitchell than Brody Dalle, Joan Jett or even Kate Bush. Her vocals are soft, soprano and lyrical in the poet’s sense of the term. The melodies are pretty and delicate. In short, she’s not what normally fills the speakers at this journal, but she isn’t without talent. However, the reader may make a different decision after visiting her Myspace page.

It is that simple click of the mouse that changes everything. The internet, digital recording and websites like Myspace allowed her to bypass all the intermediation that record companies traditionally did in their pursuit of rents. While it is true that iTunes selected her work as “single of the week” and thus gave her the big break, her music is almost entirely homebrewed start to finish.

In her own words, “It’s amazing. It’s great news for all the people who can have the confidence to go out there and do it themselves. You don’t need loads of money to make an album and they don’t need the backing of a record label. There’s no advertising or marketing involved, you don’t go on how much money has been spent.” She added, “I set up my own record label called Blueberry Pie and just got the music out there. It’s pretty easy. Anyone can do it.”

And that’s what has the record companies worried, or at least, they should be worried. They are all lined up now begging to sign her. But she’s already sold 6,000 copies of her album, and she’s doing a three-month tour of the UK – ticket sales are said to be “fantastic.” Exactly what does she (or any other musician) need them for?

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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