Ashley Dupré: 1 Governor and 1.6 Million Listeners

New York City is filled with aspiring musicians with delusions of grandeur, all of whom have their backup gigs…for Ashley Dupré (a.k.a. the woman of Former Governor Spitzer’s dreams) it was the Emperor’s Club. Putting aside for a moment all the political and ethical hooplah surrounding her sudden fame, one begins to wonder if her notoriety will bring some success to her musical aspirations.

Just this morning, before her MySpace page was deleted, Ashley’s song “What We Want” had had over 1.6 million streams, in addition to the User Generated “music videos” that have sprung up on YouTube since her identity became known. To put that in perspective, it means that on average 66,667 people have been listening to it EVERY HOUR over the past day. With those numbers alone, there’s no doubt that she’s gotten exposure from this sordid affair well beyond the scope of the “industry connections” that she refers to in the About Me section of her now defunct MySpace page.

But with all the attention and all the plays, does Ashley’s song have the quality to bump her into a showcase at SXSW? Musically, there seems to be general consensus that the song, well, sucks. It reeks of the worst early 2000′s pop treacle; even the New York Times called it “..amateurish, [using] some dated slang, calling someone her ‘boo.’”. To be fair, however, most musicians wouldn’t be caught with their proverbial pants down the way Ashley was – by the time most songs are being listened to at the rate of one million plus listens a day, they’ve already been through the production and songwriting mill multiple times. Sadly, Ashley was not given this opportunity, and when her “big break” came, all she had to give were some sexy photos and a lackluster demo whose best lyrics were: “I know what you want, you got what I want, I know what you need. Can you handle me?”

But does the attention make up for the poor quality of the song? Sadly, I think not. This whole situation is a train wreck. People are listening because they can’t look away, and I’m afraid that Ms. Dupré’s 66,667 listens an hour will sharply decline as the public latches on to the next affair to hit the airwaves.

A more interesting question to ask, though, is what if the song was good? What if Former Governor Spitzer had unknowingly discovered the next Christina Aguilera? We can only guess. We’ve seen artists like Dispatch and Lily Allen come up from the internet over the past few years driven exclusively by their online popularity, and there was certainly a time when A & R execs were using MySpace streams as a gauge for a band’s potential success. Still, none of these artists were tarnished by the stain of a political sex scandal, and if they had been, I’m afraid they would be treated to the gawking that Monica Lewinsky became accustomed to, rather then the admiration enjoyed by Lily Allen.

The best Ashley can hope for is some recognition on the NYC music scene, but one has to wonder if being known as the prostitute that brought down Elliot Spitzer is worth the few additional tickets sold at her next show on Bleecker St.

~Asher Rapkin