Sandi Thom

Alexandria Thom is a Scottish singer-songwriter and instrumentalist who became widely known in 2006 for her debut single, "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker ". The single finished the year as the best selling single in Australia, and the 5th best selling single of 2006 in the United Kingdom. Her debut album, Smile... It Confuses People, also achieved considerable commercial success, reaching number one in her native Scotland, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and was certified Platinum in the United Kingdom, whilst achieving Gold status in both Australia and New Zealand, and a Silver certification in France. The album's second single "What If I'm Right" achieved moderate commercial success.
In May 2008, she released "The Devil's Beat" as the lead single from her second studio album The Pink & the Lily which was released the following week. The single achieved only moderate commercial success, whilst the album failed to match the performance of her debut album. A second and final single, "Saturday Night", was released from the album, failing to make any chart appearance. Her subsequent albums, Merchants and Thieves and Flesh and Blood achieved some commercial success in the UK, whilst Merchant and Thieves reached number three on the UK Jazz & Blues Albums Charts. Thom became a mother in 2016 to son Logan and is divorced from former husband Matt Benson.

Early life

Thom was born in Banff. Thom spent three years playing piano and singing in a band from Gourdon in Aberdeenshire, called The Residents. Thom became the youngest student ever to be accepted at the prestigious Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. In 2003, Thom graduated from LIPA with a BA in Performing Arts.
Thom has assisted many charity appeals for Oxfam's work in Malawi and across east Africa.

Career

2004–2007: ''Smile... It Confuses People''

In 2004, Thom moved to London to pursue her songwriting career. Thom signed to Windswept Pacific Music in 2005, an independent music publishing company, and its UK arm, P&P Songs. She signed a record contract with the record label Viking Legacy, where her mother was director. 21 Nights from Tooting was a "tour" consisting of 21 performances from the basement of her Tooting flat, from 24 February to 16 March. These were recorded and then webcast by professional hosting company Streaming Tank. Tickets were sold, but the venue had a capacity of "six people". The MySpace post announcing the gigs was posted in the early hours of 22 February. Thom's website states that "the idea... popped into her head" after her car broke down travelling from a gig in York to one in Wales and following the very first live webcast she did at a gig in Edinburgh organized by her PR manager, Paul Boyd from Polar Flame Music. Thom's first video webcast was at the Edinburgh Left Bank venue in October 2005.
In early 2006, news services noted Thom's promotion efforts. Her PR team, Quite Great, claim to have conducted a large publicity campaign, including a million "virtual flyers". In a story first published in March 2006, The Sunday Times ran a piece. It was claimed that the audience for the first day was around 60 or 70 before rising to 70,000. A Reuters story the same month mentioned that "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" was being re-released the following week, with the album following in April. The publicity surrounding the tour led to major label interest, with music label representatives attending the gigs in question, and the release of the records was put back until a deal was signed. Craig Logan, the managing director of RCA Records UK, said that the label was "drawn to" Thom after hearing of the webcasting, as has Thom herself. Thom subsequently accepted an offer by RCA, which led to the single re-release being delayed until May, when it was released via the major label. The news of this broke on 3 April 2006, the official signing itself being webcast. The single was placed on Music Week Daily's playlist that day.
Paul Kelly of The Independent and others have questioned how Thom was able to sustain production of the webcast, and its viewership figures, and noted that internet traffic monitors such as Alexa and Technorati show no unusual surge of interest in Thom until she began to be covered by mainstream media.
Following her online webcast concerts from her basement in Tooting, and accompanied by increasing airplay exposure, "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" was re-released on 22 May 2006 by RCA Records UK and debuted at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart. Thom performed on Top of the Pops, making her major terrestrial television début, and in June the song reached number one on the singles chart. The song was later nominated at the Brit Awards for Best British Single. In the Republic of Ireland, "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker" also reached number one, and in Australia, it was number one for ten consecutive weeks, becoming Australia's highest selling single of 2006. Thom's début album, Smile... It Confuses People was released in the United Kingdom the same month and débuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, eventually selling over one million copies worldwide. The follow-up single "What If I'm Right" reached the lower reaches of the charts, but "Lonely Girl", the third single from the album, failed to enter any charts.

2007–2012: ''The Pink & the Lily'' and decline

In May 2008, Thom released her second album, The Pink & the Lily, preceded by the first single, "The Devil's Beat". Before the release, journalists were doubtful about its appeal. The album and single received extensive airplay on BBC Radio 2. In the UK, the album entered the chart at 25 for one week before dropping out of the top 100. Thom said:

I feel like my second album was too rushed. I felt under quite a lot of pressure when I was making it. I was out on the road and my label was really hassling me to get it finished. I admit I was disappointed with it and now, when I look back, it was released too soon. There were some things that were overlooked. It wasn't thought out properly. So, with my next album, I'm going to put my foot down and spend as long as it takes to make it.

On New Year's Eve 2008, Thom headlined the stage at the Aberdeen's Hogmanay celebrations followed by an appearance on the BBC Hogmanay show from Edinburgh where she sang one song. Thom was transferred by citation jet from Aberdeen's Hogmanay street party to Edinburgh's Castle to make both performances possible that night. Thom has also performed "By Afton Water" at the official Burns Supper in celebration of Robert Burns's 250th birthday in front of Scotland's First Minister. The event was held in Alloway, Ayrshire, where Burns was born. Thom then went on to perform in the Library of Congress alongside Sir Sean Connery and a host of Scottish congress members in January 2009.
In February 2009, Thom told the press that she would be making her third album as an independent artist after it had been announced that RCA had dropped her from their label without her prior knowledge and who she then claimed pressured her during the making of her second album.
A compilation album, The Best of Sandi Thom, was released in July 2009 to fulfil contractual obligations without Thom's consent by the Sony BMG label Camden. The 18 track collection was compiled from Thom's two previous albums and various B-sides. Thom dedicated her tour of 2009 to the Homecoming Scotland campaign. The support acts for each show were local artists with special guests ranging from Phil Cunningham in Inverness, Leon Jackson at the Clyde Auditorium in Glasgow and her original guitarist Marcus Bonfanti appearing at the final show of the English leg of the tour in Milton Keynes. A duet with the first minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, took place at one of the shows in Banff where he is the Member of Parliament, Thom has widely made her political views known and is an avid supporter of Scottish independence.
During the tour Thom released two EPs: a "Live EP" featuring recordings from the Aberdeen Castlegait Hogmanay celebrations and the "Caledonia EP" featuring a series of covers including "Patience of Angels" and the official Homecoming Scotland 2009 song "Caledonia". These recordings were only available to purchase at concerts performed on the Homecoming Tour.

2012–2019: "Earthquake" controversy

Thom's third studio album, Merchants and Thieves, was released independently in May 2010 with "This Ol' World" as the lead single. The album was released by Thom on her own label Guardian Angels, which she formed after her split with RCA. Musically it moves from pop folk towards blues and roots influences. Thom's cover version of the track "House of the Rising Sun" was released as a download-only single and extra track on the deluxe edition of the album. It was also given away as a free download to readers of the Scottish Mail newspaper. Merchants and Thieves was nominated for Best Album at the British Blues Awards 2011, and for Best Jazz/Blues Recording of the Year at the Scottish Music Awards. Thom was also nominated for Artist of the Year and her label Guardian Angel Recordings was nominated for Record Label of the Year.
Thom's fourth studio album, Flesh and Blood, was released in September 2012. The album was recorded in Nashville's 16 Ton Studios and features The Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson as guest producer, and other musicians such as Audley Freed and Rolling Stones saxophonist Bobby Keys. Thom then released her first live concert DVD, which featured a guest performance from former boyfriend Joe Bonamassa. Her fifth studio album, The Covers Collection, was released in November 2013 and was publicised as an acoustic collection of songs that Thom listened to as a teenager, including Nirvana, Guns N' Roses, Pearl Jam, Heart, and Fleetwood Mac. Thom played all instruments on the record and produced the album, which failed to chart.
In 2015, it was reported that Thom had signed to the independent label MITA Records for the release of her sixth studio album. Later that year, she attracted publicity after uploading a video to her Facebook page in which she criticised BBC Radio 2 and Bauer Media Group's radio stations for not playlisting her single "Earthquake". She said in the video, "Honest to God I'm fucking sick to death of the bullshit this industry pulls on people like me and I've had it. Enough I'm done. Fuck you Radio 2. Fuck you Bauer network and fuck the lot of you. There is no reason why you need to do this to me once again". The video was deleted shortly after attracting comment. In a subsequent interview, she accused the BBC of a bias against Scottish recording artists. Despite these comments, "Earthquake" was playlisted by many regional BBC stations and BBC Radio Scotland. In the event, MITA Records did not release Thom's album. Thom self-released the charity single "Tightrope" in March 2017 through The Famous Company, and said in an interview that no release date had been set for her next album, but she hoped it would be out by the end of 2017.