Most fans want to know more about their favorite music artists. Some songs can give fans a glance into the inner workings of a musician, but in the information age, many want to know more. What exactly do they want to know, though?
Some of that information can be found using Google's auto-fill feature. The auto-fill uses an algorithm based on searches by other users on the same topic to complete phrases in the search bar. For example, type in "Bob Dylan is" into a Google search and the first three auto-fill results are "from," "awesome" and "is alive or dead." These are the types of things the general public is trying to find out. To look deeper into this, European ticket reseller Ticketbis broke down topics into five categories: relationship status, death, hometowns, monetary worth and general curiosities.
From the 39 artists studied, general curiosities were the most prevalent searches, but also tended to make the least amount of sense. The topic ranges from things like "The Beatles are overrated" to "Taylor Swift is a robot."
Of the 34 individual artists, "is dead" was one of the three most common searches for 19 of them. Of the seven artists of that group who are deceased, only two had death in their top search results -- Freddie Mercury and Elvis Presley. Instead, the most searched deaths are for artists who are still alive, including 11 of the 15 female pop stars studied.
The relationship status for female musicians is also a more searched topic than from their male counterparts. Nine of the 15 female stars had some search related to their relationship status, including Katy Perry for whom her love life is part of two of the top four results for her name. Including Perry, two other female stars have a relationship query as their most searched topic -- Britney Spears and Tina Turner. Eight of the 19 male musicians have the relationship status as a popular result. Only Justin Timberlake and Calvin Harris have the topic as the most popular search.
Wanting to know the hometown of an artist is one of the biggest searches, as it is one of the most popular results for 21 solo artists. Of the five bands studied, only the place of origin for the Rolling Stones was searched at a high rate.
Eight artists had a popular search result involving monetary status, with the only surprising artists of the list being Calvin Harris. Of those eight, only Adele and Mariah Carey were female. Paul McCartney was the only artist in the group with a more specific query with "is a billionaire" coming as his top suggested search.
Artists used for this study:
Justin Bieber, Bruno Mars, Chris Brown, Drake, Calvin Harris, Freddie Mercury, Bruce Springsteen, Bono, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Eminem, Bob Marley, Mick Jagger, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Lana del Rey, Adele, Katy Perry, Tina Turner, Miley Cyrus, Shakira, One Direction, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, U2 and Foo Fighters.