Right around street date, Coolfer noticed a bit of online buzz surrounding the debut albums by Morningwood and We Are Scientists. There aren't many new releases coming out this time of year, so I figured I'd use the trend function at search engine Ice Rocket to see how often the bands were popping up in the blogosphere.

At first I was fairly impressed. Here were two relatively unknown bands getting some blog mentions only days after their albums hit stores. Morningwood has had 362 mentions over the last month -- 11.68 posts per day . We Are Scientists has fared even better with 1,190 and 38.39. Adjust for the slow-blogging holiday season and the numbers indicate a potential for one of both to become what is often called a "blogger favorite." They're off to a decent start in terms of underground buzz.

Then I added Nickelback into the search. Though not a band that would ever grab the title of "blogger favorite," Nickelback has been mentioned 12,689 times in the last month. (This says nothing of the total readership or character of each band mention, of course.)