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GIRLFRIEND 100,000 plays!

MassiveTalent
New York, Manhattan in an I love NY T shirt...obvs

I was very excited to see this morning that 'G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D' has now had one hundred THOUSAND plays on Soundcloud! You just never know what's going to be popular and when this little number popped into my head, it was just a light-hearted, jokey song, about those times in your life where you just have very low standards of a romantic partner; the times when you just want someone to 'snore in your bed and tell you that you're beautiful.' It started from a conversation with my friend Catriona where we were both bemoaning our Bridget Jones — like singledome. It was getting towards Winter and the main priority was thermal strategies. A boy to keep the bed warm, any would do... I didn't think it was going to generate such attention!

I was back home from Paris where I was at Uni and I played the song to my Mum, who is usually my main filter for good and bad songs. She was unsure about the chorus, which, as you may have noticed, spells the word 'Girlfriend', in a slightly tongue-twisting manner. Despite reservations, when I started playing the song in Paris, I was getting a good response. People liked it and found it very catchy. A gay friend of mine adapted the chorus to 'I want to be you B, O, YF, RIEN D.' (Which worked just as well.) The following year I recorded a demo version and then in 2011 I released 'G.I.R.L.F.R.I.E.N.D' on iTunes and Amazon as part of my debut album 'Table 4 One.'

It was never my favourite song, I prefer 'Leaving Town' and 'Wandering Heart', but people kept telling me it was their favourite. Then Tom Robinson gave the song a rave review and played it on BBC 6music. Then somewhere down the line 'stereomood', an app in Italy, took hold of the song and it went from having a couple of thousand plays on Soundcloud, to 20,000 plays in a fortnight. I was really surprised. The numbers have continued to clock up, along with 'Paris' live and off the back of this I've been approached by festivals in Italy and Spain to play in 2014.

In Spring this year, I signed to International Publishing Label 'Massive Talent' after their a&r girl had spotted the song and I've since had interest from several big companies for advertising sync deals.

As an unsigned artists with no real connections or financial backing, these kind of minor victories are a big achievement so I'm pretty chuffed. Sainsbury's own-brand Cava anyone?