When September started, Eric Hutchinson was just another unsigned singer-songwriter. He had just self-released an album, “Sounds Like This,” scored solid opening spots and was getting kind mentions in a few media outlets. Then, as Hutchinson told billboard.com, “Perez Hilton changed everything.”
After the celebrity-gossip blogger, whose site is estimated to receive 3 million unique hits per day, wrote a post praising Hutchinson, the new album has been firmly entrenched in iTunes’ top 10.
During the past week, according to Nielsen SoundScan, it sold 4,500 copies — 97 percent of them digitally, and the rest through Hutchinson’s Web site — and debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart, No. 5 on Top Digital Albums and No. 134 on the Billboard 200.
Hilton has blogged about musicians before, but this is the first time he has chosen to feature an unsigned artist.
Now there’s a “feeding frenzy,” said Hutchinson’s manager, Dave Morris; the artist has been approached by a number of labels.
But Hutchinson himself is taking a longer-term view. “I’m going to keep touring and work on the new album,” he said.
“I’ve been at this a long time, and I don’t feel like an overnight success.”
