The press has spent much of 2006 celebrating the new music paradigm, the one without major labels, the one where MySpace and MP3 blogs are all a band needs to break. Some of the articles are hype, most mostly get the story straight and a handful are so far in left field one can only pray the writer doesn't go into artist management.

This article at The Age, "How To Become A Virtual Star," falls into the latter category. According to Darren Levin,

• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah sold 45,000 CDs with the help of Said The Gramophone. (Nothing against that fine blog, but Pitchfork had more to do with CYHSY's early success than any other single factor.)
• Arctic Monkeys used online hype to get a buzz, and in a matter of months they were playing festivals. (Any journalist that doesn't mention these two facts is irresponsible: First, the band's label is Domino, the home to Franz Ferdinand. Second, British radio was what turned online buzz into real world success.)
• The number of MySpace friends a band has is a measure of the band's popularity. (Not even close to being true. Trade pub Hits isn't helping things when it writes things like, "Speaking of MySpace, there are a couple of unsigned singer/songwriters based in Northern Cali who are posting some big stats on their pages." Oh please.)

Wonder how much direct effect MP3 blogs have on a typical favorite? Coolfer has checked the numbers, and Soundscan's database is filled with blog favorites who have sold less than 5,000 albums -- many less than 2,000. There's just too many factors other than blogs and MySpace that go into CD sales and concert attendence-- the true measures of popularity. Anybody can collect MySpace friends. Anybody can get a bit of attention by giving away free MP3s of songs done in a very blog-friendly genre. Creating an actual demand for your music is much more difficult.

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