How popular is your favorite band?

Magius, no doubt .. Lacuna Coil isn't a bigger band than Megadeth, or Iron Maiden. I don't think either Maiden or Megadeth went gold or platinum in the US with those albums, so both are under that 500,000 mark. I guess I was keeping that in mind when I said Lacuna Coil wasn't getting blown out in sales by those bands. Clearly though .. the two older bands still hold a large edge.

Britt
 
Samuel Clemens said: "There are liars, damn liars, and statisticians."

The parameters of the original data are clearly stated.
What I would like to see is the comparison between those bands and the top 25 band page views. If NW has 4million views, how many would 50 Cent have? 200 billion?

That does not mean he is any better musically, that is sure. Mass market music is like mass market hamburgers--something bland and generic will always sell better than anything really good.

I am an exclusivity snob, especially when music is concerned, and most especially when the band is really really good. Being in at the start of a band's popularity is even better, IMO. It is far more fun to turn someone on to Evergrey than it is to discuss the latest Bruce Springsteen disc.
 
Magius said:
I am to believe that Lacuna Coil is a bigger band than Megadeth and Iron Maiden based on MySpace page views? I think not.
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No. But you might see those numbers and say "hmm, maybe Lacuna Coil is a little bigger than I thought they were".

That's the whole point of an exercise like this, and I assume the reason that Glenn x-posted it here: it makes you review your own assumptions. We all have ideas in our head about how "big" bands are, and seeing a piece of data that contradicts your belief should make you at least ask yourself "why do I believe something different?" In many cases you might have good, hard evidence for your belief (knowledge of recent album sales, recent concert turnouts, etc.), and then you have some basis for questioning the validity of the myspace numbers. But other times, your belief might just be based on a very narrow view of some message board hype, your own obsessed fandom, or the band's own marketing. In those cases, the myspace numbers can be a dose of reality. Perhaps not an incredibly accurate dose, but probably more accurate than your original assumption that was formed with no real data.

Neil
 
Greykiller said:
Samuel Clemens said: "There are liars, damn liars, and statisticians."

The parameters of the original data are clearly stated.
What I would like to see is the comparison between those bands and the top 25 band page views. If NW has 4million views, how many would 50 Cent have? 200 billion?
Click to expand...

Justin Timberlake (5/18/06) 39,968,223
Beyonce (10/8/05) 29,002,888
50 Cent (12/3/05) 27,643,070
Kayne West (2/13/05) 19,979,322
Nickelback (7/29/05) 17,329,623
Korn (1/26/04) 13,709,769
Foo Fighters (5/11/05) 6,655,068
Kid Rock (9/24/05) 4,569,157
Jennifer Lopez (2/15/05) 3,519,897
Matchbox 20 (2/2/07) 2,282,322
Jimmy Buffett (4/26/05) 1,895,544
Eric Clapton (2/1/05) 1,861,116


Britt
 
skyrefuge said:
No. But you might see those numbers and say "hmm, maybe Lacuna Coil is a little bigger than I thought they were"....
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Perhaps. Assuming one thinks any of "our" bands are anything other than miniscule in standing. At least here in the US.

It may act as a reality check for some, I suppose, as some tend to forget just how tiny this genre is. It might be easier to remind people that the two bands origionally named to headline PPUSA VII were the same two bands that were the bottom two opening bands on a four band club tour that same year. A "big name" being speculated to headline PPUSA IX was also a support band on a club tour a couple of years ago.

Regardless of any MySpace views Iron Maiden doing one show, in one arena, in one US city would outsell a 15 city US tour by either Lacuna Coil or Nightwish... probably more than both combined.
 
I don't understand the argument, Magius. I don't think anyone claimed that any of those listed bands were bigger than Maiden or Megadeth when it came to sales, and concert totals.

The list was only to show popularity of bands in regards to myspace page views. I still think the bottom line is that Nightwish is clearly more popular in the myspace community than Maiden. Lacuna Coil also might be, but their site has been open a bit longer than Maiden's.

Outisde of a few little blips here and there the myspace views idea seems to be a decent indicator of internet popularity since a large portion of people who use the net also use myspace. Just look at the totals for the very popular pop/rap artists .. the totals dwarf Nightwish, Maiden, Megadeth, etc, as they should. The more popular a band is the more page views they get.

Britt
 
skyrefuge said:
No. But you might see those numbers and say "hmm, maybe Lacuna Coil is a little bigger than I thought they were".

That's the whole point of an exercise like this, and I assume the reason that Glenn x-posted it here: it makes you review your own assumptions. We all have ideas in our head about how "big" bands are, and seeing a piece of data that contradicts your belief should make you at least ask yourself "why do I believe something different?" In many cases you might have good, hard evidence for your belief (knowledge of recent album sales, recent concert turnouts, etc.), and then you have some basis for questioning the validity of the myspace numbers. But other times, your belief might just be based on a very narrow view of some message board hype, your own obsessed fandom, or the band's own marketing. In those cases, the myspace numbers can be a dose of reality. Perhaps not an incredibly accurate dose, but probably more accurate than your original assumption that was formed with no real data.

Neil
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Great post, Neil! I totally agree and that's how I took it in the first place.

MySpace isn't THE only number, but it is one simple measurement. Its not junk, but a valuable networking tool for bands and people. It practically negates the need for a separate website these days. Definitely MUCH cheaper! To get a bands true popularity, it would take a fair amount of data crunching to factor in live concert draw, album sales, Billboard performance, last.fm, MySpace, and various other sources.

I have seen way too many times on this list where someone will post their PP predictions or better yet, headliner predictions with bands that I have never even heard of. It just seems that people use their own favorites to deem what is popular among us all! I love the new Darkwater and many others up here do too. However, I'm not crazy enough to think that they could headline PP or have a serious draw on a tour. No, I don't claim to know about all music, but I've been around it for a while and have a pretty good feel for the scene.
 
Are album and concert sales not directly related to popularity? Clearly the MySpace numbers don't reflect the actual real world popularity if that's what the list was trying to demonstrate. Lacuna Coil is not 6X more popular than Queensryche in the real world. Nightwish isn't 9X as popular as Queensryche, and Dream Theater arent even 3X as popular. In a more "hip" comparison DragonForce's MySpace his a few months older than Lacuna Coil's, but they have 2/3 the views LC have. Those numbers don't correlate with reality.

I realize that people tend to quickly forget, but someone has already tried to correlate numbers from MySpace with reality. He then proceded to plan a nationwide arena tour headling bands like Leaves' Eyes. Brilliant. The correlation is flawed. If I may quote from above "There are liars, damn liars, and statisticians."

If the point of this exercise is solely to determine what is hot on MySpace, then I have to agree with ashaman7122... who cares?
 
Lacuna Coil can die for all i care. Notice Nightwish is up top there now. Probably got all of LC's friends now. Ugh. ANYWAYS. Just ignore that i'm not wanting a debate.

Moving on...

Symphony X needs more friends!! Surprised at Iced Earth's numbers being below Nevermore and such. Thought Iced Earth was a bit more well known. Ah well. :p

www.myspace.com/meduza1 <---- They need friends too!! :D :D :D Apollo on Vox...*nudge nudge* You know you wanna. :)
 
Unfortunately, I've noticed some bands are focusing on their Myspace pages at the expense of their official websites. Not sure who mentioned it, but I also prefer the old-fashioned band site over Myspace.
 
rockyracoon said:
Unfortunately, I've noticed some bands are focusing on their Myspace pages at the expense of their official websites. Not sure who mentioned it, but I also prefer the old-fashioned band site over Myspace.
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I think this is often a result of many bands having little to do with their websites. They're often taken care of by the label so it's easier for a myspace to be updated by the band with a blog awhile on the road or at least someone directly involved. It also requires less knowledge with things like html code for ease of use.
 
Interesring.... I heard the unmistakeable sound of some new MB20 on the radio at work recently, but had no idea they still had some sort of following. Never been much on "pop" music, but I have their most famous release (can't recall the title) somewhere and it is quite good. It has been probably five years since I have put that in.


Bryant


 
70 million albums sold, 30 platinum and 78 gold records.... Scorpions finally got a myspace however they still haven't added me as a friend and it's been 2 weeks.

The webmaster of their band site is a bit overworked as he often cannot get tour dates and upcoming ticket sales on the site before the fans can. This actually became a bit of a mess as he was upset that fans were posting info and the Official site had not yet. It was quite weird as we were only looking out for each other as fans. When tickets went on sale in CA we posted the dates and times, he came back saying he wished we wouldn't do that as it's not official yet. IMO when I can buy a ticket via ticketmaster..it's pretty much official concert unless they happen to cancel.
 
steelreign said:
Exactly. Myspace is a fucking joke. It's pointless and unneccesary. You want to check out a band? GO TO THEIR FUCKING WEBSITE! Now THAT'S a new idea!
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Arsis haven't had an actual website for almost a year now, some bands don't seem to bother. Alarum doesn't have a site outside of a myspace page either.
 
I think myspace is a GREAT place to listen to new music... I mean GREAT! I've found out about soooo many bands through myspace, it's not even funny.... I don't download at all, so myspace is the way I find out about new underground music...
 
i think myspace numbers is a bad basis. many can just be repetivie accounts or fan pages...because in reality i dont think any of us can believe nightwish is more popular than iron maiden.
not to call anyone old here, but from talking to my "elder" maiden fans who were my age when they debuted, many dont use myspace or things like that.
 
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