ASHLEY DUPRE: THE WEEK AFTER
Last week, Music Nation suggested that the Eliot Spitzer scandal could inadvertantly launch America's next insta-famous pop star: Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the governor's former prostitute -- and budding R&B diva.
It's now been eight days since the career-ending news broke for Spitzer, and it already seems to be career-making news for Dupre.
The first sign the Dupre would benefit from the free publicity was when her song "What We Want" rose from $.0 to $.98 (the max price) for a download on supply and demand-based digital music depot Amie Street.
The second sign was a Billboard piece that quoted various industry execs weighing on Dupre's music career prospects. This was not, mind you, a humor piece, but a very real sampling of the industry's reaction to Dupre and her "hit": "What We Want." The verdict? The execs from Atlantic Records and Bad Boy seemed curious about Dupre and her potential to break into the music marketplace; the Capitol exec, meanwhile, said that Dupre would not be able to transcend the status of laughingstock.
The third sign was the most auspicious for Dupre. A savvy mashup artist has blended (well) "What We Want" and Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction." Here's a sample of this unlikely "duet" that is going viral around the Internets.
Any guesses as to what's next for Dupre's media blitz? My money is on guest-judge of American Idol. Oh, the real-world wisdom she could impart on those wide-eyed wannabes.
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Mark Holman says
She's already more famous than Monica ever thought simply because that guy, like Rush Limbaugh, was on a crusade to stop all those things that he is enjoying. Hippocrites exist all over the place. Why is it that the ones screaming the loudest to stop a thing, are actually the ones engaged in the thing? Is that a hands on or on the job training move to get closer to the source?