Michael Jackson still #1 Among Super-Fans

by Jordan Yerman | June 19, 2007 at 06:04 am

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It's a lot easier today to know every detail of your favorite star's life and work than it was, say, when Thriller came out. The issue I take with this study, though, is that it's measured amongst "fans" of given artists, but not against a random populations sampling. It stands to reason that, in the terms described below, that Jackson would rate higher than Gorillaz, simply by dint of having been performing for longer than the average Gorillaz fan has been alive. By targeting self-professed fans of a given artist's work, isn't the study group basically writing its own results? At that point it just becomes a matter of how many people you ask, sort of a statistical Hungry Hungry Hippos. I think the point of the article in this case, though, isn't the study itself, but the thin line between fan and actual fanatic.

Despite his troubled public life, Michael Jackson - a purveyor of pop hits for decades - has been found to have more loyal fans than any other musical artist.

According to a new study by PopScores, a market research firm that measures the emotional connection between performers and consumers, 82 per cent of Jackson's fans say they love him enough to buy any and all new material he releases. By comparison, Gorillaz returned a "love-to-purchase ratio" of 80 per cent, James Blunt and Linkin Park 73 per cent, Ozzy Osbourne 67 per cent, and the Rolling Stones 47 per cent.

The study, which tracked 20,000 consumers and 300 artists over six months, concludes: "Love is the single most important factor in understanding the level of passion consumers have for an artist."

What the numbers don't reveal, however, is the increasingly blurred line between love and zealotry - something experts say has led to a new breed of "super-fan" whose identity is almost solely defined by the musical star or celebrity being adulated.

"Fans perceive a relationship that's not there," says Patricia Leavy, a professor of sociology and popular culture at Stonehill College in Massachusetts.

"They feel like they're involved with the person's career. I mean, some of these fans are posting on (celebrity) websites every day ... and their identity forms partly in the context of this fan community."

Leavy says the dramatic rise of super-fans correlates with the explosion of tabloid culture, which has normalized the virtual stalking of celebrities in their everyday lives.