Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift and the late Michael Jackson have been the focal points of the 52nd annual Grammy Awards telecast. Interestingly, none of those three acts is truly dominating the world of web search.
As of 10:25PM, Google’s “Hot Trends” search index revealed that “american idiot musical” is the hottest term on the web. Interest in that term was fueled by the cast of the Green Day musical joining the band in performing “21 Guns” during the live portion of the show. “Green Day musical” landed at sixth, while “green day broadway american idiot” is thirteenth and “21 guns” is 17th.
“You Oughta Know,” the Alanis Morisette breakthrough covered by Beyonce during her performance, ranks second, leading a search for “pink grammy performance.”
Lady Gaga enters the picture in fourth, represented by the term “lady gaga and elton john.” “CBS.com/grammys” is fifth.
The most intriguing hot search term is “major tom.” Interest in the Shiny Toy Guns’ song has undoubtedly been fueled by the Lincoln ad campaign that has run frequently throughout the telecast. “Lincoln.com/music” ranks sixteenth.
Also noteworthy: Best New Artists the Zac Brown Band are beating out Lady Antebellum in the battle of country performers. While the overwhelming success of Lady Antebellum’s titular single “Need You Now” has sent sales of their sophomore album through the roof–it will debut with over 400,000 copies sold in its first week–their low-key performance did not spark the same curiosity as that of the Zac Brown Band (number 11).
Of course, what will ultimately matter is how single and album buyers respond to the telecast–which performers and award winners will see the biggest sales boosts this week?
— As far as Twitter’s trending topics are concerned, Lady Gaga had owned first place for the first two hours of the broadcast. Current trending, however, favors “Grammys,” with “MJ’s,” “Taylor Swift,” “Paris,” “Rihanna,” “Usher,” “Beyonce,” “Mos Def” and “Prince” all ahead of Gaga.