Ongoing History Daily: A deliberate song leak ends in an SNL appearance

Phoenix, the French band, was formed in Versailles in 1995, and started releasing singles in 1999. Their big international breakthrough came in 2009 with their fourth album, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. By this time, they were signed to Glassnote Records, thanks largely to the song 1901, which ended up becoming a big radio hit. It got that way because the label quietly leaked the song to some key music blogs and giving it away for free. The song blew up so much that Saturday Night Live called, asking the band to be a musical guest. They got the gig even though the album wasn’t out yet. The strategy worked. Phoenix and 1901 became just the fourth indie song to reach number one on the Billboard alternative charts.

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