Billboard.bizz reported recently here on to a new study from researchers at New York University. Prof Vasant Dhar and former student Elaine Chang sampled 108 albums released between Jan/March of 2007 and evaluated that blog chatter can triple album sales (using Amazon.com rankings).
In short when an album got mention in more than 40 legitimate blog posts, sales were 3x the average; albums that got more than 250 blog mentions saw sales increases of 6x the average.
Here is the full report:
Obviously I'm not the only who picked up on this report if I believe the number of emails I received recently from artist and labels asking me to cover their latest releases. But since it was asked nicely and some of them are actually rather good here are my favourites:
- www.myspace.com/ohcuster - in the style of many late 90s Britpop acts. Not very original in my views but makes for a nice listen anyway, particularly "Post" which seems to have gathered the most buzz on MySpace.
- www.myspace.com/springfactory - another Sweden based band. Musically more to my taste with some pretty snappy ideas, even though I don't particularly like the voice of the singer.
- www.myspace.com/thefashionDK - definitely my favourite pick of the day with an excellent remix which will find its way in the next issue of ZEROCAST. Very professional sound and sleek page (which is not a surprise since they are signed with Sony/BMG).
- www.myspace.com/brokenrecorsedinburgh - they list Arcade Fire as one of their influences which is pretty obvious when you listen to several of their tracks. Some good ideas but they never managed to really touch you in the same way as AF. I'd say keep an eye on them for later.
- Eugene Francis Jr - "Poor me" (for which I received the link) is a nice song, well produced/executed. This one will go straight to my mp3 player. More tracks at www.legionpresents.com/music.
- Dowliners Sekt - did not get a chance to listen to it yet but they are making theire new release "The Saltire wave" available for free at www.downliners-sekt.com
- www.myspace.com/kjetilgrande - pretty straightforward R&B although the voice of the singer is quite unexpected.
That's it. Now i'll get busy emailing all these people asking for the favour back. We'll see if I get any luck !
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