STUDY SHOWS BLOGGING BOOSTS ALBUM SALES (BUT DON’T TELL FRED DURST OR COURTNEY LOVE)

Does blogging boost album sales? According to researchers at New York University, the answer is yes [Digital Music News]. The group found that the volume of blogging surrounding a release “significantly affects future album sales,” though the number of MySpace friends carried a looser correlation with success. The group tracked physical album sales on 108 titles, four weeks before and after the release date. Digital sales were not tracked in the study. The research team found that releases with more than 40 blog posts felt a sales boost, and major labels multiplied the effect by a factor of twelve.

The correlation question is a critical one; does blogging cause increased album sales or do high-profile releases generated more blog buzz anyway? In other words it’s a chicken vs. the egg question.

We sure hope we helped the cause for bands like Sikth, At All Cost and Protest the Hero; but hopefully our inordinate amount of rants about Limp Bizkit and Korn didn’t contribute to Fred Durst and Jonathan Davis’ retirement accounts. Surely the researchers weren’t taking into account MetalSucks-style bashing when they released their results…

-VN