Very clever!

Click to enlarge

Very clever piece of organic search placement by the record label Popover Corps.

Popover Corps is a site owned by the singer John Wesley Harding that re-issues deleted records:

"Popover Corps is dedicated to flipping through the used bins, combing the vaults and exhuming the eight-track graveyard to find the very finest in neglected music, then presenting it in pristine condition, repackaged and remastered, with insane amounts of bonus tracks, at brand new prices. Some will pretend they knew about it all along; some will plan tribute records; others will try to google it; but you only have to enjoy it."

The page I linked to at the top is the page for the album at the centre of the excellent new Nick Hornby novel - I'm not naming it because I don't want to spoil the joke by getting in the listings myself - if you find out the name of the fictional singer songwriter in the novel (or just look at the picture above), then the Popover Corps page comes up as the top result in Google.

Nick Hornby is listed as the A&R man, and the page has been live since at least February, I'm assuming that it's just their (very clever) little joke. In fact if you read the Blurt article it's pretty clear that it's something they've enjoyed cooking up. Great marketing too; anyone who likes the novel and searches for the artist, like I did, is also the sort of person who'd be interested in obscure re-issues. (Or are they? On detailed inspection most of the artists on Popover Corps seem to be fakes...)

On a related theme, if you've read the new Nick Hornby book then this post on the Nick Drake forum will probably amuse you...