The Grammy winning sales bump

A Grammy win is worth way more than a little trophy and some short-lived fame. It’s worth actual cash. As shown in this graphic by Wilson Andrews and Mike McPhate for the Washington Post, album sales two weeks after winning shoot up from two weeks before the awards show.

Last year, album sales only went up 56 percent for the Taylor Swift album Fearless, compared to a plus 891 percent bump for the 2009 winners, Alison Kraus and Robert Plant. However, considering the relative obscurity of this year’s winner, Arcade Fire, I suspect a bump more like the latter.

[Washington Post]

6 Comments

  • Um, flying fingers? 2009 was Alison Kraus and Robert (not Alison) Plant. Doesn’t affect the music, or the bump.

  • Sebastian H. February 18, 2011 at 5:13 am

    To know if that claim is true would require data on albums that did _not_ win a Grammy, of course, and the previous sales. It is not particularly unusual that recently published albums go up in sales and you would have to look at the difference between winning and non-winning albums.

    Additionally and just as severe is an endogeneity problem. Probably albums that are likely to go up in sales are more prone to win an award and the effect is not actually caused by the Grammy.

  • You don’t know who Arcade Fire are? In which planet do you live?
    Arcade fire are immensely popular and won several important music awards.
    David Bowie knows who they are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-wEBmLht5g
    You know who Bowie, is right?
    Quick, go buy their music

    • I listen to Arcade Fire plenty, but follow the “obscurity” link and you’ll see there are a lot of people who had no idea who they were before the Grammys.

  • Should the y-axis be a logarithmic scale? The data window provides the multiplier, but I might want to visually compare.