Ellen launches new label to put out music by the ‘new Bieber’
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In under one month, 12-year-old Greyson Chance has rocketed from appearing on a sixth-grade talent show to become one of Twitter’s top trending topics, thanks to his emotional piano rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi”; a YouTube clip of it has been viewed more than 30 million times. Now, Ellen DeGeneres says she’s launching her own record label, eleveneleven, to distribute his music.
On Wednesday, just days after the Oklahoma-born tween singer first performed on her eponymous talk show, the dance-crazy DeGeneres -- who also concludes her first year as a judge on “American Idol” on Wednesday -- announced Chance as eleveneleven’s Initial Public Offering. “He inspired me to start a label,” DeGeneres said in a pre-taped clip from her show. “He is my first artist. We are making a record together. How about that?”
Chance, who is often compared to teen pop phenom Justin Bieber because of their shaggy hairdos and ability to parlay YouTube ubiquity into recording contracts, already has a heavy-hitting managerial team in place: Madonna’s longtime career overseer, Guy Oseary, and the manager for Lady Gaga, Troy Carter, will split management duties.
-- Chris Lee
