The original post AND all these comments miss the point.
File sharing is a means of distribution , NOT marketing .
If you are trying to get popular by being the top download on The Pirate Bay, then you're doing it wrong. In my experience, there is very little horizontal movement between pieces of content on torrent trackers. You go to the torrent tracker with something mind, you find it, you download it, you're done. Other media like SoulSeek are much better as an exploratory sharing system.
Nor are popular bands popular just because they're signed to major labels (otherwise Poe one of my favorite artists would be considerably better known than she is). They are popular because major labels and other soul crushing pieces of media machinery market them heavily through all the things that people are connected to. Television shows, movies, radio, the blogosphere, etc.
If you want to be popular, make yourself notable AND easy to get. Torrent trackers take care of the second bit. You've gotta take care of the first bit.