Turns out the internet isn’t killing the music industry after all. According to a recent study by NYU’s Vasant Dhar and Elaine Chang, the level of blog activity preceding an album’s release strongly correlates with its subsequent sales. Dhar and Chang tracked online buzz for 108 albums during an eight-week period (four weeks before and after release dates), using Amazon.com CD sales as their fiscal reference point. Interestingly, blogging beat out other relevant sources of “chatter”—consumer reviews, online and mainstream media reviews, and (amusingly enough) the bands’ friend count on MySpace—in its predictive power for commercial success.
Their results suggest that a mainstream release with over 40 blog posts will likely experience high sales. The threshhold is 240 blog posts for an independent release. In some cases, these independent releases even outsell mainstream albums with comparable blog post numbers. Meanwhile, some albums that received poor mainstream reviews still managed to sell extremely well (ex: Art Garfunkel’s Some Enchanted Evening and Kidz Bop 11), weakening the connection between critical taste and popular appeal.
Dhar and Chang clarify that even when extensive blog activity correlates with increased album sales, it does not necessarily cause the increase. Independent variables, such as the quality of the artist, increase both sales and blog posts independently.
The study overlooks the possibility of a “leak”—the album becoming available for illegal download before the release date. Theoretically, a leak could detract from physical CD sales, but could also increase blog posts significantly, seeing as many pre-release posts typically include a review and mp3s from the upcoming album. On the other hand, a leak can lead to hype, and hype leads to sales.
If industry labels are smart, I imagine they’ll start requiring (or hiring) employees to blog about their upcoming releases. Increasing blog traffic may not actually augment sales, but it certainly wouldn’t hinder them either. And, hey, you can’t beat the cost of advertising on a blog.
We could all stand to learn a bit more about the Kidz Bop series anyway.
