Unsigned singer is making a name for herself 'The Way I Am'

By BILL WERDE

This was Ingrid Michaelson's moment. It was Thursday, Sept. 20, 2007, and the Old Navy sweater commercial that featured her sweet, simple song, "The Way I Am," was hitting the airwaves. For a few days, the 30-second ads played everywhere: all of the major networks during most prime-time shows, "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" and "Late Show With David Letterman," and some of the bigger channels playing syndicated shows. Then, premiere week began.

"You couldn't get away from it," laughed Danny Buch, senior vice president of promotion and artist development at Sony BMG's RED, which at that time had just signed on to distribute Michaelson's "Girls and Boys" album. "It was on every channel!"

On Sept. 27 alone, the commercial aired during the premieres of "The Office," "Ugly Betty," "My Name Is Earl" and "Grey's Anatomy," along with a slew of other placements. By the time its run was over, it had repeatedly played across virtually every network and demographic on 14 of 15 nights through Oct. 4. In less than three weeks, the spot made more than 65 appearances in prime time, including 17 season premieres.

Not bad exposure for an unsigned artist. Michaelson, 28, lives with her parents, an older brother she is not shy about yelling at, a rabbit and a small, yappy dog in the prettiest house on a charming street on Staten Island, N.Y. The place is old and full of wonder, old wooden bookcases lined with vintage record players, sculptures her mother makes, countless books and vinyl and even an art project Michaelson made in the sixth grade.

For those who have heard her songs -- quirky pop confections full of infectious harmonies -- the home's whimsy seems perfect, as does the fact that she's sitting on her couch wearing an oversize babushka and flannel spaceship pajamas.

Michaelson has a cold. And if she's a bit rundown after her insane run of the previous 14 months, well, that's fitting, too.

Unknown by anyone but her friends and family in early July 2006, Michaelson is now in the top five at triple A radio, and starting to cross over to top 40. In the space of a year, she has gone from playing small cafes and clubs for friends and family, to selling out New York's 500-capacity Bowery Ballroom just before Christmas; tickets for a Feb. 15 gig at the city's 1,400-capacity Webster Hall are moving quickly. (Her appearance at Nectar in Fremont next Monday is sold out.)

She's a new You Oughta Know artist on VH1, with "The Way I Am" in heavy rotation, and she's beginning to sell a noteworthy amount of music -- the week leading up to Christmas was her best sales week to date, moving more than 12,000 units of "Girls and Boys," according to Nielsen SoundScan.

While it's tempting to focus on her lack of a traditional record label deal -- Michaelson holds her own master and publishing rights -- thinking of her as the poster child for The End of the Music Business is to miss the point of her story, entirely.

She may not have a regular deal, but she'd be the first to tell you she never would have made it from the Old Navy commercials to the aforementioned accomplishments without plenty of help from the traditional music business. Or at least parts of the traditional music business that are nimble enough to keep up with the speed at which artists, in the right place and time, can develop in 2008.

"All these things are happening so quickly," Michaelson says, wrapping a blanket around her legs, and her hands around a mug of vanilla tea. "I feel like I'm ready to take this to another level. And I don't even know what that means anymore. It used to mean signing to a label. And I'm still not opposed, but I'm still saying, 'Let's just see.' "

Meanwhile, she has assembled what she calls her "Frankenstein label" around her, and it includes some pretty heavy hitters from the music biz. Her manager, Lynn Grossman, is a former GM of world music label Putumayo. Her lawyer is Peter Lewit, of Davis, Shapiro, Lewit & Hayes, a firm that works with some of the biggest names in the industry.

Her music is promoted to radio by Right Arm Resource, a company run by industry vet Jesse Barnett that works with plenty of indies, but also, in the past year or so, major label artists including Bob Dylan, KT Tunstall and Joss Stone. Paradigm, her booking agency, also handles such clients as Coldplay and Avril Lavigne. Original Signal is listed as the label on her CDs, but it's basically a pressing and distribution deal that has grown to include some marketing.

"Effectively, Ingrid is an unsigned artist," said Lucas Mann, president of Original Signal, a new artist development company that has a distribution deal through RED. "As the music business changed, we felt it was important to provide artists with whatever opportunities they were looking for. Lynn and Ingrid had a very specific idea of what they wanted and we wanted to be able to work with them. We've come upon something that works, and it's important to look at this and the pieces of this that are working and say, 'Hey, there's a lesson here.' "

For now, Michaelson and Grossman say they are content to see how far the singer can go without a label.

Grossman says that "when this project needs anything, we'll give it to it. And if that's a label at some point, I have a feeling that will be made clear to us." In the meantime, Michaelson keeps surpassing sales levels she once assumed would mean it was time to make the jump.

"Initially I figured we'd sell about 50,000 records and we'd need a bigger team to help us get to the next level," the manager said. "Now we're at 60,000 (actually at 87,000, as of last week) and we have a really nice big team already. Right now in my head, the next target is about 250,000."

But, she's quick to add, she probably would have the same perspective then: "We've already done 250,000. Why give half away now?"

"Peter (Lewit) and Lynn and I talk about it," Michaelson said. "He's explained the options that I could get. People say you can get to a certain point without a label, but you can't get past that point. And maybe that's true. But maybe it isn't true."