Blunt, infamous for cruelly inflicting songs such as You're Beautiful upon the world, is said to have sent a 'personal' email to millions of inboxes. With a subject line that read "I'd like you to be the first to hear my first single", the email contained a link to the new song "about love, life, fear and hope... and more than anything, you... and me...".
Blunt's record label Warner has said the bulk mail was a "clerical error" that was sent to people on other artists' mailing lists by mistake. Blunt himself joked about the incident on Twitter:
Oops... Just emailed the whole of the UK by mistake! Ha!
— James Blunt (@DirtyLilBlunt) July 29, 2013
Some of those who thought they'd received a potential virus also took to Twitter to warn recipients that the mail in fact contained something much worse:
If you receive an email with a link to the new James Blunt single, don't click on it. It's a link to the new James Blunt single!
— Mikey Guitar (@MikeyMutineer) July 29, 2013
Although it's very possible the unsolicited mail was a sly marketing ploy from Blunt's record label, it is not the only example of a large-scale mailing list faux pas. In 2011, The New York Times sent an email to over 8 million readers asking them to reconsider unsubscribing. The mail had only been intended for 300 recipients.
(Photo source)
