Legs of the Stool: Music Monopoly
I came across this while doing research for the music project I talked about before.
Top Band Sites According to Alexa
1. Emusic.com
2. Iron Maiden
3. Nightwish
4. Backstreets.com (Bruce Springsteen)
5. Linkin Park
Alexa is no gospel, but from any context, the rankings are shocking. Iron Maiden shouldn’t be anywhere on that list. They haven’t had a platinum album in the United States in over 19 years. You never hear them on the radio and outside their core audience, most people think they’re a joke. Nightwish? Using conventional logic, their position is almost unexplainable.
So how is Iron Maiden on the list? How do they have a 7,000 Alexa Rank when Eminem and Fergie are at 75,000 and 20,000 respectively? For one, there is clearly a large demographic that is not being served by traditional radio and pop-culture. And when the distribution walls no longer exist–as they don’t online–the habits and tastes of consumers radically change. What Hollywood and mass-media does is create a round hole that makes it impossible for square pegs to go through. Then as gatekeepers, they can shape and control what constitutes a successful artist. All of that is artificial and relies on what Godin calls the 3 legged stool of the FCC, strict copyrighting, and limited retail outlets. The internet gets rid of all three–a massive power vacuum…
And mostly, I think it has a lot to do with this:
“There is an unspoken contract between the band and the audience. If you’re David Bowie and your fans want you to change every album then thats his style. With Maiden, that’s not our style, fans like us to play something thats identifiable; they want to see nuances of change but they’re happy with Maiden. Maiden’s music appeals to a certain person and in every generation theres a certain amount of those people born, thats why Maidens appeal is finite in terms of the number of records we sell in the short term.”
I’d be willing to wager Iron Maiden’s traffic was highly influenced by their Guitar Hero placement this past year. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing on Family Guy not only put it on the number one slot in iTunes but pushed their albums sales onto the charts. Why they stuck though– that’s just pure metal and awesome riffs.
maiden “a joke”? you sir, can burn in hell.
I’m seeing them in Feb. I don’t think they’re a joke–but most do. It’s widely believed that they were the inspiration for Spinal Tap.
This is a reflection of the fundamental dynamics of the intarwebs.
The web has always best served distributed minorities by providing them with a focal point. BMEzine is the classic example of a massively popular website revolving around content that the vast majority of the population will never give a fuck about.
I don’t see a great deal of motivation for anyone to go to Eminem’s website. I mean really, whats there that anyone would give a fuck about? Eminem’s presence, or fergie’s presence, or any of the equivalent front line celebs have so saturated the media distribution channels that there’s nothing compelling on their website. If you want free Eminem tracks – you go to limewire or whatever. If you want news about tours, go to your local ticket vendor, if you want a biography, you can read better ones at a dozen sites then what you’ll find at Eminem.com – all the draw material is better provided elsewhere.
Iron Maiden on the other hand – have a massive fan base – but very little media distribution. If you want to know stuff about iron maiden – the iron maiden website is probably the logical first place to go.
In Eminem’s defense, he hasn’t released an album since 2004, and his website sucks.
Funny, I just watched a video today about Jay-Z and Apple possibly partnering up and restructuring how music is distributed.
Iron Maiden’s gonna getcha!
Maiden never turned into Facebook or Myspace, they never tried to be bigger than they were. They attracted a core audience but never to alienate them to attempt to get a larger audience. They do what they do and a certain population appreciates what they do. They understand to consolidate what victories they have and ignore the impulse to attempt an assault on a mainstream audience. I find that a lot of the bands that have as much credibility AND lifespan as Maiden start out slowly and stay close to the community; they don’t explode after one, two, or three albums and then implode. I recall one of Greene’s strategies to ensure a foundation, something along the lines of,
“Strength is built from small tedious steps that build a foundation, not a giant leap that foregoes any structure or base.”
Motorhead, Megadeth, Slayer compared to Motley Crue or Guns N’ Roses. Ignoring the music, the former stayed tied to their roots, the latter overextended themselves.
Have you ever heard of Horse the Band? They’re pretty goofy, but really original, and they sound like they’re doing exactly what you’ve been saying about using the internet to their full advantage and everything. They’re going to try, at least.
I think that you’re looking at these things from a smaller perspective than you should. In the United States, Eminem is massively popular. Most people here have never heard of Daft Punk, though, or Felix da Housecat, though in Europe, Southeast and east asia, other huge markets for music, these artists are huge. Heavy metal, hard rock and music of similar genres is huge in Germany and eastern europe, and ignoring the international markets is a foolish and shortsighted thing to do.
OR, you could realize that Alexa disproportionately ranks English speaking traffic or all the top sites would be in Chinese. And, Eminem is absolutely ENORMOUS overseas.
Regardless, Iron Maiden isn’t a leader in any other category–record sales, radio plays, touring, merchandise etc. That’s because all those things depend on physical distribution and are subject to limitation. The internet changes that.
Alexa has a massive skew for certain subjects
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/estimating-webmaster-skew-in-alexa-metrics/
http://norvig.com/logs-alexa.html
But as long as you’re aware of the bias then you can still consider the data valuable, as Robert Greene has said.
Daft Punk is awesome.
@ Mr Holiday. Yes Alexa is horribly skewed. If you know this why then did you quote them as your source for your rant?
Are you an idiot? Alexa is skewed which only amplifies how astounding it is for Iron Maiden to be on not just this list, but any list at all. Tell me which bias in the system favors British heavy metal and prog rock? Or am I forgetting how much the TechCrunch crowd loves Bruce Dickinson? Alexa ranks are heavily dependent on the amount of users who use the Alex Toolbar, which is why nerdy sites tend to have really good ranks that don’t match their traffic. For instance, Radiohead after their recent release should have skyrocketed due to their discussion on blogs and such.
Regardless, as I said in the post, Iron Maiden in the Top 50 proves my point. To have them at #1 is mindblowing.
That’s not the only thing that’s enormous overseas am I right guys?