‘The structure of the music industry & how my pop video fits in”

Musical taste can be a controversial topic, almost at the point of tribalism. Music is at the epicentre of culture. Not only to the extent that an individual can derive a sense of identity, but also that music can completely change a global community. It is continuous because not only does it define personality, lifestyle and popularity, but also signifies it as well. However all commentators agree that music has its trends, from social groups i.e. Goths, Jocks, Dancers and Politicians to people more influenced by other forms of music, they all have a link between them. Some critics believe that music and industry are in many ways incompatible term, this could be because it Is seen as industry V art, and that a lot of today’s music is commercial and not from proper ‘ethnic’ backgrounds. They want artists to have to work for the job/talent that they have rather that just being given it in a sense.

It is the dynamic tension that exists between the artistic and commercial forces of underpinning the success of this vast media business. It can be seen as a tension between the organic and synthetic e.g. the band that our group is doing ‘Toy Hearts’ is an organic band because they are ordinary people, wear there own clothes whilst performing or shooting a music video and an ‘On your own’ band, whereas bands such as spice girls and girls aloud are synthetic because they have been ‘manufactured’ chosen because not only there vocal ability but also there image i.e. height, weight, hair, colour etc.. As well there are TV shows that show such qualities such as Simon Cowles ‘X Factor’.
Another feature to consider is the music industry synthetic connections with other media alliances, such as with our band we would ideally like them to perform on Jules Holland, although this is possibly not as realistic, it is something that we would probably aim for.

Although the pop video is only one strand of an often multimedia campaign, it is also a very important factor to consider from an image and marketing point of view. This is when we use the likes of synergy.
Within the music industry there are also different trans national corporations such as
• Universal
• Sony/BMG
• Warner Bros
• EMI

These are known as MAJORS, these are the companies that will support/sign big bands such as Rhianna, Take That, Eminem and Miley Cyrus. They will be willing to spend more on marketing and more on the production of their music video. Spending up to £/$500 million on one shoot. Most of these ‘Majors’ own a licence of a string of smaller subsidiary companies in order to explore different kinds of audiences in different kinds of genres.
These would be called ‘Major Independents’. These would spend money but not as much as ‘Majors’ maximum being about $/£50,00 and would include artists such as Lilly Allen, Amy Winehouse and Mumford and Sons. Finally there are a huge number of small companies with little or no financial connection to the majors, and these would often focus on a small number of artists, within specialised niches in the industry. These are called ‘ Independants’

The industry as a whole has a complex relationship with a number of different media purposes,
• Radio
• TV
• Print Media (Newspapers, Magazines etc …)
• Film
• New Media (youtube.com etc …)

This is the idea of selling the band, marketing it so well that everyone wants a ‘piece’ of it. Brand of the Band . This idea would look at the process of synergy and symbiosis, synergy looking at the energy between different medias and symbiosis looking at how to establish a band that is true.

Current threats to the music videos of today are things such as
• Internet- Downloading
• Manufactured programmes with live feeds where it woukd be a live stream of a concert and member of the public would pay a sum of money such as £10 to watch.
• Music television becoming more mainstream such as MTV

But to us this puts us at an advantage, where we are getting to listen and watch are favourite bands for free or for a smaller sum of money that paying them directly. Although this is a real strain on the music industry to make money, especially with programmes such as dirpy.com and limewire.#



Miley Cyrus projects her image -