Math Rocks

Sometimes there is a nice synchronicity to things. On December 8^th, Ray Toro (lead guitar in My Chemical Romance) replied to a tweet from a fan:

@gerardslaugh: “yOU DESERVE MORE FOLLOWERS. ITS NOT FAIR. 
@raytoro: My happiness isn't based on social media reaction.feel bad 4 those that it is

They’re both right. Inasmuch as there is such a thing as deserving followers, which is debatable, Ray Toro is a reasonable one to follow. He’s an amazing guitarist and he’s affable. Great smile. He doesn’t tweet a lot, but that’s better than overkill.

It was especially relevant to me, because as I was contemplating about the extra love given to lead singers (http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-boys-in-band.html), I started wondering about Twitter followers, and it is totally reflected there. Let’s start off with My Chemical Romance:

My Chemical Romance 483,907
Gerard Way, Lead Vocals – 412,011
Ray Toro, Lead Guitar – 151,689
Mikey Way, Bass – 254,869
Frank Iero, Rhythm Guitar – 223,411

I started tracking the band as well as the members, just to see, and there was more variation here than anywhere else. I think to some extent that is a reflection of how the group account functions. Some do more promotion than others, some make a point of following fans, and some aren’t very active at all. Effectively running a group Twitter account would probably be an interesting area of research with applications that might apply to other creative fields and businesses, but it’s really not something I’m familiar with.

Getting back specifically to band dynamics, as the lead singer, Gerard is the clear winner in terms of follower count, as would be expected. The other band members’ totals are completely respectable. If Ray trails, that may go back to the whole makeup/sexual harassment issue that we touched on in Gossipy.

I did not find any strong correlations between follower counts and instrument played for anyone other than the lead singer. Here we have two bands with wildly different levels of establishment:

The Gaslight Anthem – 63,674
Brian Fallon, Lead Vocals – 36,744
Alexander Rosamilia, Guitar  – 1576
Alex Levine, Bass – 2,317
Benny Horowitz, Drums – 3,122

Weezer – 1,039,209
Rivers Cuomo, Lead Vocals – 853,348
Patrick Wilson, Drums – 16,581
Scott Shriner, Bass – 8,528
Brian Bell – 1911

Let me say about this that all of the others in The Gaslight Anthem tweet way more than Brian Fallon, and when he does tweet it’s mainly random song lyrics. For Weezer, Rivers has not tweeted since July, whereas Patrick and Scott tweet regularly. Content is not an issue so much, except in that Brian Bell would probably have more followers if he did tweet more (and possibly also if his handle had his name rather than his other project’s name).

There were two cases where I thought being the lead singer would not matter as much, and in both cases I was wrong:

Blink 182 - 514,306
Mark Hoppus, Lead Vocals - 2,339,824
Tom Delonge, Guitar - 418,749
Travis Barker, Drums – 1,250,234

Duran Duran – 84,641
Simon Lebon, Lead Vocals – 92,879
John Taylor, Bass – 50,390
Dom Brown, Guitar – 5,714

I was really very surprised here. Well, that the new guitarist for Duran Duran has a significantly smaller following than two of the founding members was not surprising. (Nick, Roger, and Andy do not appear to have accounts.) However, if anyone was going to give the lead singer a run for his money, I thought it would be John Taylor. As it is, Simon has almost double the following. As for Blink, Tom does a lot of vocals, and he fronted his own band, but no, Travis leads significantly. Is there some residual resentment for when they broke up? Really, Tom’s tweets are fine.

The other thing that was quite interesting for me was that I have recently started listening to Fall Out Boy, and it occurred to me that this might be one where the lead singer was not the frontman, because you just hear so much about Pete Wentz. Looking up “frontman” on Wikipedia, they listed that as an example of the exception to the rule, so that made me feel smart, but also, check out the numbers:

Fallout Boy 230,299
Pete Wentz, Bass – 2,573,428
Patrick Stump, Lead Vocals – 164,239
Andy Hurley, Drums – 20,135
Joe Trohman, Guitar – 55,008

Surely the follower numbers don’t lie. Pete Wentz is the frontman. Moving past that, though, the singer does have a significant edge over the rest of the band, so despite the exception, the rule is still felt.

Now, I actually collected a lot more My Chemical Romance stats than are posted above, because I was thinking about both former members and touring members. I’ve got three former drummers and a touring drummer, but the touring keyboardist does not have a verified account. It’s an unusual spelling, so I think it probably is him, but he’s not really tweeting.

I’m actually not going to touch on former members, because that’s really a minefield. Whether they leave on good terms or not, there may be perceptions that skew how the fans of the band will react. However, we can get some interesting data on touring members by looking at the other band I follow, because, hey, I want to get them in here somewhere:

All American Rejects – 106,133
Tyson Ritter, Lead Vocals – 77,612
Nick Wheeler, Lead Guitar – 21,726
Mike Kennerty, Rhythm Guitar – 17,515
Chris Gaylor, Drums – 1,642

Matt Rubano, Bass, touring - 9721
Scott Chesak, Keyboards, touring – 1316

We do have another exception in here with the main group, in that Chris has an account, and he does not use it. That’s fine. I have this weird feeling that he would hate tweeting, and I don’t want him to feel any pressure for that. If he did, I’m sure he would be in about the same range as Nick and Mike. Obviously with the touring members it is much lower, and some of Matt’s following may come from his time in Taking Back Sunday. (Actually, he does a lot of stuff, including giving bass lessons. He’s pretty cool.)

So, is there a point to all of this other than me getting something stuck in my head and obsessing?  Possibly.

The first point is that even though I have conceded that there are valid reasons for the favoring of the frontmen, and that it is reasonable, I still do not approve. If I love a band’s music, I love them, and I want to know about them and appreciate them. Following them on Twitter is great. You get an idea of their humor, you get good suggestions of other bands for listening (again, Frank Iero and Mike Kennerty are great for this), and often you get to see pictures of their pets. Good times. I guess I will do some #FF suggestions this Friday on people I think should be followed. It will be futile, but I will do it anyway.

The other point is that it has nothing to do with what anyone deserves. Certainly musical taste is personal, but also, a lot of it is merely who is on Twitter, and how they use it. This group may include people with a lot of time on their hands and underdeveloped tastes related to their relative maturity. I think I can illustrate this with two more figures.

Taylor Swift – 21,614,256
Justin Bieber – 31,212,420

Clearly there is no point in deciding worth based on Twitter followings. It’s an interesting phenomenon, but that’s all it is.

There was one other thing that I started wondering though, on the topic of frontmen, because there are some—I don’t even like calling them bands—where the front may be less obvious. Wikipedia came through again by giving me the names of the members of One Direction, because I didn’t know, and I intend to forget them after this:

One Direction - 8,371,842
Harry Styles – 8,730,862
Niall Horan – 8,132,324
Liam Payne – 7,542,747
Louis Tomlinson – 7,523,393
Zayn Malik – 6,912,374

I guess if there is a front it’s Harry. I think he’s dating Taylor Swift, though by the time I post he could just be the start of a song about their breakup. I feel a little bad for Zayn. In New Kids on the Block terms, he must be the Danny. (It was Danny, right? I didn’t like boy bands then either.)

Regardless, this has NOTHING to do with what is deserved.