Spammed At XPN: Philadelphia Inquirer Article Added January 13, 1997

Sent to me by Steve Pielocik, who is responsible for this so called spam. Way to go Steve!

The following is from the Philadelphia Inquirer (Friday 1-10-97):

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SPAMMED AT 'XPN

Folks at WXPN-FM (88.5) knew Tori Amos had a lot of fans, but they didn't know to what extent they'd go to get her in the station's year-end Top 50 countdown.

Program director Bruce Ranes thought he was being real hip and 90's when he told fans they could submit ballots by fax, snail mail, and e-mail. Boy, was he in for it.

"What a fan on the Internet [that would be yours truly!] did was to coach people to send in e-mail supporting Tori Amos," said Ranes. "There's a fan club on the Net, and for a while it seemed like we were getting alot of suspicious e-mail. So we had to look a little harder to make sure that all of her votes were legitamate."

Amos placed 11th. Despite the station's scrutiny of the votes, said Ranes, she was probably helped by the spamming.

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The article also features a rather good picture of Tori with the caption "Tori Amos nearly cracked the top 10 in a survey of WXPN's 50 most popular artists."

Well done, everyone. My father warned me that it would be a huge scandal, and he was right! I was considering sending a reaction to the paper and/or WXPN. Any suggestions? Feel free to let me know at musikae@earthlink.net

Please give me feedback, comments, or suggestions about my site. Email me (Michael Whitehead) at mikewhy@iglou.com