Now Newsweek, has given that title to Perez Hilton, the smarmy blogger who gets his kicks off ripping on celebrities. It appears that Perez is a music fan and that one mention on his site can generate a giant increase in site hits for an unknown band like Mother Mother or sales for a Major Label act like Mika. Newsweek says that his recommendations are like Oprah’s Book club. (Actually Jennifer Hirst formerly of Last Gang Records makes the claim)
Read here:
Gossip Maven Perez Hilton Tries Music Biz
Now this is quite a jump. The majority of Oprah’s book club members ar
e legitimate best sellers, some in the millions, and this has occurred over a sustained period of many years. The Newsweek reporter is claiming that the slight bump that several artists experienced after mentions on Perez Hilton’s site as evidence of his star making abilities.This is strange logic on 2 levels. One, For Mika, the Universal Republic artist who had the number one single in the UK. His 50,000 sales can hardly be attributed to just Perez Hilton. Granted he did not have traditional radio airplay, but he was all over MTV and VH1. Mika’s song Love Today was the theme to the Ten Spot commercials and I heard that song no less than 5 million times over the course of the past three months thanks to an unhealthy real world road rules challenge obsession.
Second, for Mother Mother, Newsweek claims that a mention on Perez Hilton spiked their hits by 5,000 in one hour. What do site hits translate into though? Does all that traffic (is 5,000 even a lot) mean that Mother Mother will really break though?
For the record I like Mother Mother and Mika, but there is a lot more going on with both of those records than just Perez Hilton.
Listen here:
Mother Mother MySpace
Mika MySpace
The most interesting thing in the article for me is this quote
Several years ago I wrote a treatise on payola for blogs. It looked like the natural progression as radio’s influence waned. Whichever company could control the flow of music to Blogs would be as valuable as the old independent radio promotion companies. The main reason it did not occur was that few blogs had any real affect on sales. With this Newsweek article maybe the tide is turning. It is even more amazing that Ms. Hirst comes right out and says that she would prefer a payola system. I don’t think this is a good thing. Somewhere the next Elliot Spitzer is licking his chops at taking down Brooklyn Vegan.
“So what's in it for Hilton? He insists he gets paid nothing for an endorsement—unless hanging out with celebrities counts as some kind of currency. "I get free clothes," he admits, "but no one's ever offered me money." "I wish," says Jennifer Hirst of the post-for-pay idea, "because if that were the case he would just take any music we send."
5 comments:
Don't take the quotes so literally. They are mine. The Oprah thing is really just to show that no matter what that woman hocks...be it a book or a product or a diet plan...her audience jumps on it. Her audience is lemming like that way. Perez readers are somewhat similar. They might not all go buy records but they will at least go and check the artist out that he posts about. Artists who are unknown to most get exposure. That is great, no?!
As far as the payola thing goes...
Why wouldn't I want all my acts to be on his site. My comment about Perez being bought was more about coming to his defense. Assumptions are made about him being a genuine fan or one who can be purchased. Having sent him a few bands I know that he can't be bought as he only posted about the one, Mother Mother. Do I want to literally pay him? Fuck no. At an indie there better things to do with your limited money. Do I want him to play everything so the roster gets as much exposure as possible? Hell ya.
Ok, I generally have a problem when bloggers have to have the last word and one up their commenters, but this Jen person just makes no sense.
First "Don't take quotes so literally" is a strange admonishment. Quotes are by their very definition literal. What else am I supposed to take them as.
Secondly I understand the Oprah reference, my point was that I made the exact same claim two weeks prior for Bill Simmons and backed it up with hard data. Its like Jen did not read the post at all, and somehow doesn't think I understand what she meant. What I said was that I think that Newsweek's statistics need a little bit of work and don't hold up under examination.
My last point was that the internet has the potential to resume payola if it starts to have significant impact on sales. It currently does not.
I don't think I said anything disparaging but merely used quotes from a mainstream publication to illustrate larger issues and look deeper than the usual lazy magazine journalism. I really don't see why Jen has her panties in a bunch.
"...the internet has the potential to resume payola if it starts to have significant impact on sales. It currently does not."
LOL.
I am laughing because your article reads like you are a typical disgruntled A&R person. You thought of the idea first, someone is copying you, you worry about things you can't control, you don't understand the internet. Lame, lame, lame...and...typical.
Anonymous,
No argument about being disgruntled, but to insinuate that I don't understand the internet is just unfounded.
I should clarify what I meant though, as it was just a quick retort. Currently the 3,000 or so hits from a site like Hilton's mention do not impact sales or more accurately profit margin as in a way that make it cost effective to pay off individual internet sites the way radio stations were paid off in traditional payola. It is moving more and more in that direction every day, Sarah Barellies itunes promotion proves that, but currently I don't believe that it is cost effective (and regardless illegal) to pay off the amount of sites excluding itunes that it would take to significantly impact sales. If you have hard data as to why you are correct and I am wrong, I would love to read it and will gladly engage in debate either post here or email me at signingpower@gmail.com
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