Annie Lennox Calls Out Scammers Trying to Take Advantage of Unsigned Artists

Grammy and Oscar winner has fun at the expense of an email offering to help her break into the music business

Annie Lennox posted a screen-shot to her Facebook page on Thursday of a truly hilarious, tone deaf email purporting to be from a radio station music coordinator offering to help the living legend break into the music industry. TheWrap strongly suspected that the email was from scammers trying to take advantage of unsigned artists, rather than the world’s dumbest radio station employee, and as it turns out, Lennox agrees.

Returning to Facebook Friday morning, the former Eurythmics singer followed up on her earlier post with a warning to up and coming artists to be wary of such emails. “Whilst it’s obviously a bit of fun sharing the email I received telling me I had ‘potential,’” Lennox said, “sadly up and coming musicians are sent these kinds of scams every day.”

“Companies reaching out cold to help you,” she continued, “sending emails that are clearly formulaic with links asking for cash to upload your tracks are a very dodgy business indeed, and not one I want to see anyone fall foul of.”

https://www.facebook.com/annielennox/photos/a.10150674901984589.419727.6216464588/10155616336939589

The original (admittedly hilarious) email Lennox received offered her the chance to have her music put in rotation on a radio station with (gasp!) “over 100,000 unique listeners each month.” Lennox redacted the station’s call letters and a URL, but left all other text in the letter intact.

“I came across your music on line [sic] and really like what I heard!” said the letter writer, “Kylie,” who introduced herself as the station’s “New Music Coordinator.”

“I find artists who I think have potential and get them in rotation on our station. If you’d like, please send over the MP3 for your latest single. I’ll forward it to Glenn our programming director here at [Redacted] to see if he’s interested in putting in rotation.”

The tone, formatting, typos, requests made of the recipient, and the lack of last names for station personnel were suspicious enough. But the real tell-tale sign was that the letter primarily focused on convincing the recipient to sign up for a shady-sounding “artist development firm,” promising recipients that “if they really like your music, they’ll cover all of the marketing expenses … Please let them know Kylie referred you and you should be in.”

Suffice to say, this is a great time to read up on tips to recognize email scams — but feel free to laugh at the idea that someone could be unaware of one of the most successful artists in pop music history.

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