Jay Z takes a jump in popularity after Glasto

Amid a wash of skepticism, Jay Z continues to fight off his critics. After snubbing Noel Gallagher’s remarks on a hip-hop artist headlining Glastonbury, with his version of Wonderwall as an opener, Jay Z has kept his winning streak up this week. In a HMV investigation into the impact Glasto acts had on the record buying public, Jay Z came out tops with a five-fold increase in album sales.

While HMV note, “Admittedly, The Black Album is only just inside the current top 100 chart, so its sales do start from a lower base than some other titles, but there's been a perceptible lift all the same.”

As well as a hike in album sales, HMV say upto 5 of his previous singles are set to re-enter the UK charts this week.

Ironically, Jay Z's rendition of Wonderwall may have aided an 18% pick-up of Oasis’ What’s the Story (Morning Glory) record, with Wonderwall itself back in the top 200 as well.

HMV say this is quite common and that festivals always expose the masses to new music and help shine the spotlight on new talent. Others who appear to have been crowd pleasers at Glastonbury include, are MGMT, whose album sales are up nearly 200% in HMV, Vampire Weekend up 50%, and strongstresses Amy Winehouse and Duffy are up an impressive 74% and 163% respectively.

HMV's Gennaro Castaldo said "With the huge amount of media coverage that it now enjoys, combined with the immediacy of purchasing music these days, Glastonbury effect on artist sales appears more pronounced than ever before. The choice of Jay-Z to headline may have been a controversial one with some commentators, but it seems that the fans who were there or watched his performance on TV loved it, and we're seeing some noticeable increases in sales of his albums and downloads at HMV as a result."

It will be interesting to see if this trend continues over here as the best in Irish and international talent put on their best shows at Oxegen.