Does Jessica Simpson really know your name? Her first album on Epic, A Public Affair, is set to be released in August, and buyers will be able to insert the name of their choice into the lyrics of her single. The idea came about when Epic president Charlie Walk sang the chorus—“Hey, baby, I saw you looking over here, baby’’—to Access Hollywood producer Nancy Harrison, substituting her name for the word baby. “My marketing guy was there, and he and I just looked at each other and smiled,’’ says Walk. “This is a fan-empowerment record, and she is letting her fans participate in it.’’ When a person goes to the Yahoo Music store and other sites as well, he will be able to search for his name (say, “Nick”) from a list of over 500 names on a menu, which Epic promises will be “mixed flawlessly into the original recording by background singers.” Unless the name is something like Suri, Apple, or Shiloh, in which case it takes about a week.

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• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Beth Landman
• Table of Contents: Jul 10, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!