Ingrid Michaelson is Unbreakable

She’s just 27 and has the kind of exposure that would make a more insecure artist cower in a corner and see about that Aspen Diet all the cool girls in Hollywood seem to follow, but thankfully Ingrid Michaelson doesn’t care about going Hollywood, even if her two big hits “Keep Breathing” and “The Way I Am” are about as high profile as it gets these days. In fact, she still lives at home with her parents, tours in her mom’s mini-van and doesn’t have a major record label deal yet.

Raised in Staten Island by a sculptor mother and composer father, Michaelson took an early interest in music, starting with piano lessons at age four, nurtured a love of “classical music, old Hollywood musicals, and folk music,” and went on to study musical theatre in college.

“I think as a little kid, you want to emulate what your mom and dad do, so that started me off at a pretty early age, and also because they are involved in the arts, they are very supportive of me, and have always been supportive of me. So, growing up in that environment, it was pretty easy to end up where I am,” Michaelson says.

Here’s something contrary to what you might think: she is not an overnight success.

Michaelson’s debut album, Slow the Rain, was quietly released in 2005 to some acclaim, and her current Billboard chart hotshot Girls and Boys originally came out in the summer of 2006 via her own Cabin 24 Records. Well-connected and familiar to the Hotel Cafe scene in Los Angeles that produced Cary Brothers and Joshua Radin, Michaelson’s lovely melodies and incredible vocal range built up strong word-of-mouth from the beginning. She is now one of Zach Braff’s top friends on MySpace, where he recently blogged to his rapt readers that “cool singers” such as Michaelson, Jay Clifford and William Fitzsimmons “are pretty much all I listen to in my car right now.” The Garden State star is not her most influential music ally, however, and this is how everything changed for the serious red-headed, piano-playing beauty who only semi-recently quit her day job, and is fond of taking pictures of herself eating.

Michaelson’s ascent to the big leagues is a fascinating study in what has become the “New Model” of success for up-and-coming indie artists looking to break the barrier: find exposure on iTunes, work the MySpace thing, and get your music on a popular television show (or movie soundtrack) known for its keen music choices.

In November 2006, Michaelson received word from Chop Shop Supervision – a company that procures music for use on television shows and film – that her honest and honestly vulnerable music was on their radar.

“Ingrid’s music and lyrics seemed perfectly suited to Grey’s Anatomy. Producers Shonda Rhimes and Betsy Beers also really responded to the tracks. Of course, an added bonus is that Ingrid’s mom is a fan of the show,” remembers Alexandra Patsavas, music producer of Grey’s Anatomy and the new CW hit Gossip Girl.

The rest, as everyone seems to know now, is history, to the tune of 25 million viewers last fall when the season finale of Grey’s aired, with Michaelson’s gorgeous ballad “Keep Breathing” used during the episode’s heartbreaking apex. To date, Chop Shop has used four Michaelson songs during episodes of Grey’s Anatomy: “Breakable,” “The Way I Am,” “Corner of Your Heart,” and “Keep Breathing.”

“The song [was] not only perfect for the show and scene, but was allowed to soar (sans dialog, etc.) in a very pivotal dramatic moment,” says Patsavas.

The very next day, everyone wanted a piece of Michaelson. Google hits went up, iTunes was set afire for “Keep Breathing,” and the sky lit up for the plucky girl with sweetly golden pipes.

“I wasn’t expecting a huge response, so that was surprising, and I think anyone will tell you that seeing their own work or hearing their own work in such a public forum is kind of surreal. I was obviously very happy, but, more just in shock than anything else,” reflects Michaelson.

 Girls and Boys was re-released nationwide in September 2007, and lightening struck twice soon after as the buzz Michaelson experienced with “Keep Breathing” became a full-tilt jolt when “The Way I Am,” her “little song that could,” (as she recently blogged), was featured in an Old Navy sweater commercial. Sales for the CD rocketed up iTunes (once again) and Amazon.com. New listeners were instantly enamored with her flair for communicating life’s little idiosyncrasies, indignities, fears and self-esteem crises. On “Die Alone,” her honesty takes on a universal paranoia, when she croons, “I never thought I could love anyone but myself. Now I know I can’t love anyone but you. You make me think that maybe I won’t die alone. Maybe I won’t die alone.” “I just try to sing about what is going on in my head, and I think what’s going on in my head is what’s going on in everybody’s head. I don’t think I’m different in that way. So, I’m able to kind of voice things with clarity.”

Some “old” fans balked, began crying sell-out, and puzzled Michaelson, who is still coming to terms with her enormous exposure. Surprisingly, she went straight to her growing masses on MySpace, engaging them in a bare-naked discussion of what it means to truly sell-out.

“I got a few emails from people who said ‘I used to like your stuff, but now you sold out, oh well’ kind of a thing. It made me upset, and I wanted to find out what other people thought about that, because I’m trying to form my own opinion about it and I’ve yet to come to a conclusion. I just wanted to put it out there and just sort of understand where people’s heads are at.”

The fair-weather elitism of the indie scene grates on Michaelson, who at this early stage in her career still needs to pay the bills, and cannot be contained to playing the small rooms forever just to remain an insider favorite.

“People like to discover music and keep it secret, their little secret, and when other people hear about you, you’re not cool anymore, and you’re not the secret, but I think those people are just very into the ‘scene’ and not really into the music, just into the idea of knowing things before other people do. [Laughs] I feel bad for those people. It’s a very close-minded way of thinking, but that’s okay. They can go find another ‘indie’ artist and be happy that nobody knows her! Success versus failure is basically what it is,” she muses.

For now, Michaelson has too much going on to silence the naysayers or allow it to give her pause. She was recently named a VH1 “You Oughta Know” artist, saw her Autumn de Wilde-directed clip for “The Way I Am” take the video channel by storm, regularly performs sold-out shows across the country, and will play a hometown Christmas-themed show at Manhattan’s Bowery Ballroom on December 19 with special guests Jenny Owen Youngs and Dan Torres.

“I think it depends on each artist, and each person. It depends on what you believe inside of you is the right thing to do. You can’t really go by what other people are thinking. It’s just what you’re thinking. Obviously I want to be able to be involved with people and projects that are positive, and so that’s where I’m at right now…Touring and recording, and that’s all I can…that’s all I know.”

–Carrie Alison, Photos by Deborah Lopez

http://www.ingridmichaelson.com

Related Posts