Band to watch

The Ghost Is Dancing ended last year with a strong finish, releasing a five song EP to much critical acclaim. At the time, the band was rumoured to be working in the studio to release a new album in January/February. The album is now slated for a June 19th release, but has already been made available for reviewers. Generally, we are interested in seeing how bands fare in the hype machine of the summer festival circuit, and so far, The Ghost Is Dancing has been conspicuously absent.

Welcome!

To the left you will find the results (number of mentions in blogs per day) of the bands that will be performing at the Sasquatch music festival. Some are also listed below, as well as bands that have issued new releases. Towards the bottom of the lists are bands that performed at SXSW in March.

To see results stretching back ninety days, simply click on a band's chart.

Sasquatch ho!

The next major festival on our horizon is Sasquatch, and over the next few days we will be busy adding those performers on the left side of our list.

Some things to note: Bjork appeared on Saturday Night Live last weekend and gained 125 hits.

The importance of touring with a new album? Check out the Beastie Boys floating along at roughly 150 hits, which is half the number Modest Mouse and Arcade Fire are getting.

Bands to be aware of

For the most part, we are all interested in our own particular bands that we know and love. Certain artists, like Mika or Amy Winehouse, deserve attention on the graphs solely because of their increasing numbers. However, two bans that ought to give us all pause are Rebuilding the Rights of Statues, and Lonely China Day, two China-based bands that Tag Team Records brought to SXSW.

Interpreting Activity

For the most parts, a lot of bands seem to hum along at a pretty stable level of attention, but every so often we'll see a sudden large spike of activity. Most of these bands recorded a record volume of blog mentions back in January when the full line-up (or almost full) for SXSW was released. Again, for many of them, their mentions dropped quickly back to "normal", then began building up slowly in anticipation of SXSW. Bands that garnered a lot of attention at the four day music festival in Austin saw an even greater increase over the March 15-18 period, and then again, a slow, steady decline back to "normal".

A single spike, such as that of January, typically represents a major announcement or single appearance. A week's worth of activitycould often be a festival appearance, while something that lasts longer, but is more intense early on, represents the release of an album or EP. An artist with a runaway hit, like Mika, displays an ever-increasing rising action.

The following are bands that released albums or EPs post-SXSW:

The Ponys
Tokyo Police Club
The Good, The Bad, and The Queen
Blonde Redhead
Andrew Bird
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

Welcome!

Welcome to Bands, Blogs, and Buzz, click on a band's graph to receive more detailed information.

We will be tracking various bands throughout the summer, checking to see which groups and artists manage to make good on all the hype they generate. Or to see who actually achieves a bit of notoreity. For example,very few people were talking about Perry Farrell prior to his SXSW show, where he showed up in a white and black Charlie Brown-esque sweater, shiny silver pants, and proceeded to tell the audience how much he loved us and would do unspeakable things to us if only he had enough time. It was truly a bizarre and somewhat surreal moment, but it made the number of people talking about Farrell jump from under ten to over fifty per day for over a week.

Currently, the majority of bands that we are following appeared at SXSW back in March, but leave us comments for bands you'd like to see here.

Also, check back to see how particular events affect a band, for example, Blonde Redhead has just released their new album, 23 - how many more people will start talking about the band?

Cautionary Warnings

In an attempt to measure the buzz surrounding bands going into SXSW, we are charting the "chatter" of the blogosphere. However, given band names, like "Office" and "Spoon", a high level of measurement error exists.

Bands, Blogs, and Buzz

This site, created in conjunction with The Daily Wenzel, for a possible upcoming feature in Fast Forward Weekly, is an attempt to chart the success of some of the hundreds of bands heading off to SXSW next week.