Interesting that a minor uproar in the blogosphere is at the heart of The Guardian's article on singer-songwriter Sandi Thom, "An internet superstar - or just another rock'n'roll swindle?" One would have thought the controversy would have faded away by now, but Thom's success is prompting reporters to dig further.

"Since Thom's story first appeared in the Sunday Times in March, an army of bloggers have chipped away at press claims that she was a penniless, desperate singer who turned to the internet after her car broke down on the way back from yet another sparsely attended gig.

They pointed to her publishing deal with Windswept Pacific Music (home of Beyonce Knowles), her collaborations with well-known songwriters, her professionally produced website and the track record of her manager Ian Brown in promoting a number of other unlikely success stories. They also reproduced statistics from web tracking services such as Technorati showing there was little interest in her website until the first stories appeared in the London Evening Standard and the Sunday Times."

The Times Online is keeping the Thom story visible as the artist heads for the top of the British charts. It looks like Thom's PR agency is cooking the books:

"The Times has discovered that Thom’s PR agency offered thousands of fans free copies of her album in return for their sending messages encouraging people to listen to the single through the social networking website, MySpace.com, which is owned by News International, parent company of The Times.

Fans admitted buying multiple copies of the single, as iTunes downloads and CDs, all of which counted to the song’s 32,720 chart sales last week."

Thom's story is still a heated topic at The Velvet Rope, where many are glad to see the press sticking to a success story they were skeptical about from the beginning.

Additional reading: Coolfer and Hypebot take opposing points of view on Sandi Thom.