SwingOrama Forum

SwingOrama Forum: Music: Favorite Albums & Songs: Swing Statistics from Amazon.com

By Ron on Tuesday, July 27, 1999 - 01:00 pm: Edit

Just for fun I did some serious surfing in Amazon.com, checking swing CDs and their rank at that moment (today) on Amazon.com. I then used the "Customers who bought this CD also bought.." links to other swing CDs and artists. I tried to find the most popular CD of a particular artist. I make no claims about the accuracy of this list, the rankings change frequently. Also, I probably missed key bands, if I didn't know them, and they weren't "linked to". But it gives an idea of the relative popularity of some of the swing bands we know and love, or love to hate.

I entered the data into tables in Word, sorted them, converted back to text, then brought them here. Enjoy the fruits of my anal surfing in the following messages.

By Ron on Tuesday, July 27, 1999 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Artist	Most Popular Title	Amazon.com Sales Rank
Setzer	Dirty Boogie	149
Cherry Poppin Daddies	Zoot Suit Riot	264
Big Bad Voodoo Daddy	Big Bad..	402
Indigo Swing	All Aboard	828
Squirrel Nut Zippers	Hot	945
Lincoln Ctr Jazz Orchestra	… Swinging with Duke	1117
Royal Crown Revue	Mugzy…	1521
Lavay Smith	1-hr Mama	1775
Steve Lucky..	Come out..	2976
Bill Elliot	Swing Fever	4389
Eight & ½ Souvenirs	Happy Feet	4700
Joe Jackson	Jumping jive	5671
Big Time Operator	High Altitude Swing	5935
Lee Press On..	Jump Swing..	6823
Might Blue Kings	Uptown…	8013
Blues Jumpers	Wheels…	8793
Chazz Cats	Road House Swing	10667
Love Dogs	Heavy Petting	11825
Ron Sunshine	Straight Up	12170
Red & Red Hots	Boogie Man	12589
George Gee	Swing Live	12662
J Street Jumpers	Is you is…	14379
Big 6	We the boys…	14721
Casey McGill	Jump	19470
New Morty Show	Mortified	20272
Blue Plate Special	Night out with	21457
Dem Brooklyn Bums	There goes	23700
Eddie Reed	Hollywood Jump	24049
Swingerhead	She could be..	24712
Ray Gelato	Men from Uncle	29560
Blue Room Boys	Mr Jives…	33980
Camaros	Evil	36207
Pete Jacobs	Would you like…	53045

By Ron on Tuesday, July 27, 1999 - 01:09 pm: Edit

Hey, this Table feature works great.

The above was modern swing bands.

Below is a list of Hot Modern Swing Collections:

Artist	Title	Amazon.com Sales Rank
Collection	Swing Swing Swing	724
Collection	Swing this baby	2550
Collection	New Millenium swing	2847
Collection	Swing it	5147
Collection	Hipsters zoots…	7669

By Ron on Tuesday, July 27, 1999 - 01:13 pm: Edit

Below is my last table, various classic swing and big band artists. This table is definitely very incomplete, but it still gives an idea of how popular certain artists still are, relative to the modern ones.

Artist	Most Popular Title (maybe)	Amazon.com Sales Rank
Sinatra	Very Best of	233
Louis Armstrong	Greatest Hits	388
Duke Ellington	At Newport	472
Glenn Miller	Greatest hits	528
Collection	Ultra Lounge 5-Wild cool…	1120
Ella Fitzgerald	Best of Songbooks	1177
Collection	Swing Kids soundtrack	1227
Louis Prima	Capitol collection…	1322
Basie	At Newport	1559
Ella & Louis	Best of	1605
Louis Jordan	Best…	1664
Duke and Basie	Count Meets Duke	2131
Cab Calloway	Are you hep…	3817
Benny Goodman	16 most requested	4133
Collection	Oscillatin Rhythm	12259
Ella & Basie	Ella & Basie-sunny side..	15566
Collection	Frankie's Favorites	20637
Collection	Risque Rhythms	23081
Collection	Jumpin like mad	28581

By Ron on Tuesday, July 27, 1999 - 01:34 pm: Edit

It was an interesting exercise, especially seeing which bands were "linked" together, signifying that people who bought one often bought the other. Not surprisingly, the hard-core neo-swing: Brian Setzer, Big Bad Voodoo Daddies, Cherry Poppin Daddies, and Royal Crown Review, all linked to each other a lot. RCR did link to Indigo Swing, too.

Bands like Lavay Smith linked to Indigo Swing, New Morty Show and Steve Lucky. And Steve Lucky linked to Big Time Operator, Lee Press On, Lavay Smith, and Bill Elliot. The various hot swing collections linked to each other a lot, or Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.

The classic swing bands linked to each other a lot, as expected, but you could follow a thread of links to lots of places in the Jazz genre. I did manage to follow a thread from a Glenn Miller CD, to a swing collection CD, to Indigo Swing.

Remember, I only listed the top album of each band/artist. The other albums were often comparable in popularity, relatively.

Interesting, no? Amazon.com is great.

By Swiveler on Tuesday, July 27, 1999 - 01:46 pm: Edit

Wow, that is interesting. I just bought something non-swing. I just bought Harry Belafonte's greatest hits. Most of the songs are from the 50's. I'm in Jamaican heaven.

Maybe I'll check out their tables on swing books, that would be interesting, too.

By Shadow_Charlie on Wednesday, July 28, 1999 - 07:48 am: Edit

Ron,

Not to be one of those grammar nit-pickers, but I just had to clarify this to spare Ron the thousands of e-mail he would probably get from this. :)

I think you meant to say "Enjoy the fruits of my anally retentive method of surfing the net within the following messages."

I don't know if you're aware you actually wrote "Enjoy the fruits of my my anal surfing in the following messages."

By Swiveler on Wednesday, July 28, 1999 - 09:21 am: Edit

LOL, that was so damn funny. I didn't pick up on it, but that made me laugh out loud this morning.

Thanks!

By Ron on Wednesday, July 28, 1999 - 10:55 am: Edit

great, thanks for pointing it out...

By Dennis Hong on Wednesday, July 28, 1999 - 11:55 am: Edit

Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn! How could I have missed that? Oh, the lost opportunities....

By Shawn Hanna on Wednesday, April 05, 2000 - 03:56 pm: Edit

Two quick thoughts on the web:

The MySimon (www.MySimon.com) service is a fantastic way to compare prices of CDs!

The Napster program is great - the selection for swing isn't that large, but I can tell it is growing (www.Napster.com).

Enjoy!

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