Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
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October 09, 2007
Control, Manchester and Factory Records
Last week I was in Manchester for the excellent Manchester Digital conference. As a music fan, the city is forever linked in my mind with the Factory Records and the late Anthony H. Wilson. There have been a number of films telling the Factory story recently: first there was 24 Hour Party People staring Steve Coogan, then a documentary on BBC4 last month, and now the Ian Curtis biopic Control, directed by Anton Corbijn. As the graph below illustrates, the publicity has helped drive interest in Factory, Curtis and his band, Joy Division. A quarter of people searching for 'ian curtis or 'joy division' went to Wikipedia.
Tony Wilson saw Manchester as England’s second city, although this is something that the people of Birmingham would probably have disagreed with him on. A recent survey by the BBC found that more people agreed with Wilson than the Brummies, and it seems that UK Internet users are also on his side. There were 33% more searches for 'manchester' than 'birmingham' during the 12 weeks ending 29 September and, as the graph below shows, the official Visit Manchester website currently has more visitors than the Birmingham equivalent - although it remains a close contest.
Posted by Robin Goad at 10:00 AM
Posted to Movies | Music | TV | Travel
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Comments
There is an interesting comment on this piece here: http://blog.webometrics.org.uk/2007/10/is-manchester-second-city-or-just-big.html
David asks about the influence of football on the searches for 'manchester', so I looked into this. Of the 46,000 different search terms containing 'manchester', 3,000 of those are for 'manchester united', which leaves 43,000 search terms containing manchester but excluding 'manchester united' - still more than the 28,000 containing 'birmingham'.
Robin
Posted by: Robin Goad at October 10, 2007 10:21 AM
Everyone knows Liverpool is Britain's pop music capital. More number one artists from Liverpool than any other British city. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Wilson's jaundiced view of the North West ignores the fact that Liverpool was also Britain's first multicultural city,its inhabitants travelling further afield than Manchester "Factory" workers. If you have to tell people you're great, you're not!
Posted by: Matt at October 18, 2007 11:06 AM
Thanks for the comment, Matt.
This is one of the pub / blog conversations that could run forever with no conclusion. My personal opinion is that, Beatles aside, Liverpool didn't produce anything that compares with Joy Division / New Order / The Smiths / Happy Mondays / Stone Roses. Its just my personal preference, but I would also choose Sheffield over Liverpool myself: Human League / Cabaret Voltaire / Pulp... and that's even before we touch on the contentious issue of London - which probably wins just because of its sheer size!
Posted by: Robin Goad at October 18, 2007 11:31 AM
Fair point well made Robin, although I'd argue that Echo & The Bunnymen and The La's can added to that list. If you haven't guessed it yet I am a Scouser so am naturally biased, but Stone Roses are my favourite of all of those - but that was the era I grew up in. It's amazing how much great music all these cities have produced.
Enjoy the weekend!
Posted by: Matt at October 19, 2007 11:39 AM
