When Perez Met Feist

Even back in February with only a "My Moon My Man" reminder of her coming LP, we figured this year would give Leslie a "Chan-like raise in stature" -- but 2007's gone well beyond that, turning out to be some bizzaro world where our hyperbolic prediction was really an understatement, Steve Jobs turned the indie chanteuse into a global sensation, and our favorite Broken Social Scene cutie started getting tons of face time on Perez Fucking Hilton dot com. But credit where it's due and all that, it appears the Queen Of All Picture Pilfering charted his own, independent route to the recently coronated indie princess.

 
[Feist pic via Chart Attack, Perez pic by Astrid Stawiarz for Getty Images]

Via Chart Attack (via LHB):

CHART ATTACK: Perez Hilton has certainly been kind to you this year.

FEIST: Yeah! When will that dime turn? You know Dragonette? I was having drinks with them in London, which is where they live now. And Dan Kurtz actually produced my very first record in '98. So we're old, old friends. So I went out for a drink with him and Martina [Sorbara] and they had some friend there and we're all just hanging out. And after about an hour I said to the friend, "Hey, what do you do?" And he said, "Oh, well, I have this blog, this gossip blog." And he asks me what I do and I say, "I'm a singer, I've got some records out." I didn't know who he was from a hole in the ground. I'd never heard his name before and he had never heard mine. But the next day, I heard from about 70,000 people going "Oh my God!" and all of a sudden I understood the context of who this guy with green hair was. And that was Perez Hilton, of course. The next day, he did a blast saying "Check out this girl's video," and that was six months ago. I'm bemused and grateful that stuff is on some people's radar. It's certainly not on mine. But I can understand it means something to someone.

Granted this came after The Reminder had already been splashing all over the internet and such, so although not exactly a testament to Perez's ability to stay informed, it is a less shitteous route to discovery than say watching it all go down on a little Nano screen and screaming about it on your blogspot. Also, this is probably exactly why Perez's musical taste otherwise is so perfectly shoddy: He just blogs about people who are nice enough to not hate him to his face. Welcome to the big time, the Gossip!

So yeah, 2007 was chock full of Feist. But what's up for Leslie next year? Aside from having gigs lined up through March, according to Billboard, she's been renting studios during tour downtime to "fool around on new stuff," sing Grizzly Bear songs, and record basic tracks for "a collaboration with Death Cab For Cutie's Ben Gibbard, which will appear on the Red Hot and Indie compilation being produced by the National's Aaron and Bryce Dessner. So basically expect her in the Top 5 Overblogged Acts for Gummys '08.

Posted at 10:35 AM
Tags: Feist | Perez Hilton