The Music Industry

Getting Started in the music industry:

Music studio with EQUIPMENT

There are many things an aspiring artist needs to take into consideration before really trying to put themselves out there. To start off, if you are in a band for example, it is very important that the people around you and people behind you and people in your group all want to be on the same thing and ideas. All artists must make sure that they have a raw passion for music and therefore always thrive to learn something new. If artists aren’t serious about what they are doing or don’t know exactly what they want to gain from the music industry then there is no space for that as the music industry is a very competitive place. Having equipment is obviously a big part of an artist developing their skills, having a studio, simulators and instruments is essential so that aspiring artists can record themselves and their work, listen back to it, and notice particular aspects that they may decide to alter.

Practice is a fundamental aspect when trying to make it into the music industry as no artist can possibly make good music without producing over and over again, tweaking parts of their music that they may not be 100% happy with or taking on advice from other people.

Being a DJ looks at the type of music that is popular at the time. So when it comes to parties or raves, the people who attend are sure to hear the latest top tracks. Being a DJ requires you to know exactly what you are doing because it isn’t easy to get the hang of all the functions on the decks, you also need to ensure you know how to set everything up correctly and efficiently in order to be a successful DJ, which is proving to be a very accessible but competitive industry nowadays. One of the DJ’s from a clip stated ‘professionalism outweighs talent’, by this he meant that in order for you to get into the music industry you must be dedicated to it fully, people want to do business with dedicated artists, not people who are in two minds whether to turn up to practice or not.

In order to secure the successfulness of an upcoming artist, it is important to be known in outer areas rather than just where you live, the more people that know you, the more people are talking about you and you gain more publicity this way. So being part of a community and network of many people who speak to and help each other is important. This is why a lot of artists use sites such as MySpace and Facebook as these sites are used by millions of people and it is a way of promoting themselves to a wider audience. When you are part of a community, this is helpful because it is easier to find gigs to attend and get involved with other music events and in the end it will make it easier to climb the musical ladder.

A lot of artists don’t recognise their fans and don’t show gratefulness for the fans feedback or support, this won’t make it easy for an artist to make it into the music industry because if fans feel unwanted and unappreciated, they will begin to not support you as an artist. Honest opinions from the audience and friends and family are VITAL in order for you to gain a true reflection of how good you are. Friends or family are likely to give false hope and tell you that you’re an excellent artist when you may need to work on a few things before trying to make it into the music industry. If you are given false hope, when you try and enter the music industry, you will get a hit of reality which makes you contemplate whether you are completely serious about what you want to do and be willing to take on professional advice from very critical people. Some may even say that your work is rubbish and needs changing completely, if you can’t take on constructive criticism then the music industry isn’t the place you would want to put yourself into.

A member of Foo Fighters stated that Drug use within the industry is never good and it can ruin your chances of getting into music and even staying successful for a long time. So no matter how much bad feedback you may get or people who are discouraging you, resulting drugs will put you in an even worse position.

Getting noticed

Toddla T said that as a musical artist you must make sure that your work is so tight and on point to the point where you can’t possibly change anything else to make It any better. If you are in this position, it is essential that you create a ‘buzz’ where lots of people start sharing and recommending your music to friends, this is the most quickest way of advertising yourself and becoming noticed by thousands, one remarkable record can start the buzz off. Toddla T’s way of creating a buzz for his music was giving mixtapes away for free to start off, so that people would be more inclined to listen to it because people aren’t likely to pay for your mixtape if they have never heard of you before.

Chipmunk said that in order to be a successful music artist you need to be noticed everywhere by loads of people, and this can be done by jumping infront of camera’s at raves and stating your name, you musical site that promotes your music (MySpace) and telling people to give it a listen. People are more likely to take notice of you and remember you that way.

Web presence helps promotion of yourself a lot, but it is important that you have a unique selling point that makes you stand out completely from everyone else because no one wants to see a copy or someone similar to an artist that already exists because we already have that kind of artist. This is what needs to be considered when I market my artist. Me and the artist must reflect on the kind of music they want to make and ensure that it is as unique as possible so that marketing my artist would turn out a lot more successful.

Image is important in the music industry also, it is essential that you be yourself in the way you dress and not copy any other famous artists dress sense otherwise you will end up looking the same and audiences will be put off you as an artist. I must make sure that when I market my artist, their image is unique and not the same as other artists that already exist within the music industry.

The Structure of the Music Industry

There is a relationship between Institutions, Audiences and ‘Creatives’ within the music industry. They are all interdependent in some way or another. (‘Symbiotic’ relationship)

Institutions rely on audiences to be purchasing the CD’s and records they sell. For example HMV and Sainsbury’s distribute the content for audiences to buy. They have a way of targeting the audience in a specific way and this is what attracts the audience. Audiences rely on these institutions to provide them with the music for them to purchase.

‘Creatives’ are the people who come up with the ideas for a product, then present it to the institution who will fund and distribute their products. The music has to be good and institutions have to be convinced that they can make money from it otherwise they won’t sell it. This shows their interdependent relationship and how they rely on each other in order to make the most money possible from music.

Audiences rely on ‘creatives’ to have the best ideas and skills to create enjoyable products that specifically targets them, otherwise they won’t be interested and the music industry will lose out on profit. ‘Creatives’ rely on the audiences as their source of money as they are the ones who will be buying the products, which is why there is pressure for ‘creatives’ such as record labels to make good music that targets a wide audience.

In the end, it is evident that Institutions, audiences and ‘creatives’ all rely upon each other and care about the money that comes into the, so it is important that the music that is being made is good and appeals to audiences otherwise not much money would be generated.

Issues and Debates within the music industry: SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Social networking sites overthrow the popularity of albums because the ability to download music off social networking sites is becoming more available to consumers. They are a threat to paper downloading music industries and cause industries to lose out on money. For example iTunes is losing out on sales because of social media networks where you can get the music for free.

There is a symbiotic relationship between social networking sites and other businesses because sites such as Yahoo have recently created Yahoo Music where music content is available to Yahoo users. Yahoo relies on businesses to bring the music to them to increase the popularity of their site, and businesses rely on social networking sites in order to promote the music from a particular record label for example.

Yahoo Music Website: http://new.music.yahoo.com/

Social networking sites are an example of ‘convergence’ because they now go beyond just socialising and communicating with friends and other people around you. You have the ability to upload videos, music and other content which can be viewed by a big community. From this, word-of-mouth takes place, where consumers recommend a song that they really like to their friends, then share it to them, and that friend does the same, and so on and ultimately promoting the artist to many people. This is also an example of when an artist or song goes ‘viral’ where they have been seen/heard of everywhere through the use of social networking sites.

Issues and Debates within the music industry: DECLINE OF CD PURCHASES

CNET news posed the question ‘Do you still buy CD’s?”, or is it time we said “bye” to them?

Music downloading has taken over the way we obtain music. There are many opportunities that people can get hold of to download music for free such as Limewire and BitTorrent as oppose to buying an artist’s album in the shops for around £10. People have the ability to order music on sites such as Amazon, where even though they are buying the CD, how does that person know it isn’t an original CD and it hasn’t been copied onto a blank disc and made to look exactly like the original CD.

Graph showing decline of  CD sales from 1999-2006

The loss of cassettes that were so popular in the 70’s may even impose that the loss of CD’s is likely to occur because as technology keeps developing massively, many of us as consumers move on with it and get rid of old habits if there is a better way of doing something or obtaining music. However some people still prefer the traditional way of purchasing CD’s as they have sentimental value and are always accessible whenever you want to listen to them as oppose to when you download music onto your computer, you will have to be on the computer in order to listen to that song.

Gizmodo.com said that technology has completely changed the way in which we listen to music and has caused a decline in the CD market. MP3’s are so much easier and quicker to get hold of as oppose to going to a shop and buying it. Downloading gives a sense of ‘instantaneity’. Another factor that may be influencing the decline of CD sales is that people don’t always like every song on an album so instead of buying the whole album and feeling like you’ve wasted money because really you only liked 3 songs on the album, people will result to just downloading the singles they enjoy the most. Because of this issue, artists are under more pressure than ever to make every song on their album good so this entices consumers to buy the album.

Issues and Debates within the music industry: PIRACY

One of BBC’s headlines was “online music piracy destroys local music”. It stated that the sales of albums by local artists have fallen by 65% in the last five years. Sites such as BitTorrent, Limewire, Kazaa, Rapidshare and many more all contribute to allowing people to download musical content for free.

One spokesperson said “If children were to lose their internet connection, they would stop downloading off all these sites and this will reduce piracy”. This is true to a certain extent because people want good quality music and if they can get it for free then that is a bonus. However, before downloading sites and software came about, people used to copy and burn CD’s over and again, Tape music videos that came on TV, tape music from radio stations, and even go as far as pausing the recording when the DJ would cut in, then resuming the recording when their favourite song came on. This was done by many people before internet was around and is still a form of piracy. Even though it wasn’t the best way to get good quality music, it was a way of consumers getting their favourite music for free. Music artists aren’t fond of piracy because it puts their profit at stake as they are losing out on purchases of their singles and albums. However some artists may not have a huge problem with music piracy as they can make a lot of money from endorsements and tours, and if you are a popular artist such as Beyonce, people will pay hundreds and thousands to see you on tour, and you will still be making money from that. Prince gave away his last official album as a way of advertising himself to the population, this still brings money in for him as an artist because more and more people are recommending him to friends and he is constantly becoming more known.

Graph showing the rate of Piracy increasing between 2008-2010

Sites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and Megavideo account for 21 billion visits per year showing that piracy is still very big and will carry on to be for a very long time as it is virtually impossible to stop in all forms. Even though some downloading sites do get shut down after a while, new ones are always opening, even where you can do it online without software by typing a URL link into a YouTube to MP3 converter.

Another headline from the Guardian said “Piracy continues to cripple music industry as sales fall 10%”. This shows that the rise of new services such as Spotify and legal ‘crackdowns’ on online pirating failed to stop the tumbling music sales. Spotify is a music streaming service offering unlimited streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels. You can listen to the music however many times you like, but if you want to download it to put onto an MP3 player or your phone, you have to pay. This software regulation was put in place in order to help beat piracy, however it doesn’t have much of an effect on consumers because there will still always be so many sites and software that will allow you to download music for free, and even sell it onto others for a cheaper price, which is illegal, but you aren’t likely to be caught and will cause others to be victims of pirated content.

Issues surrounding the music industry

From watching a documentary called 'Music, Money and Hip Hop Honeys', I gathered a clearer insight into the types of issues there are in the music industry. The music industry is huge, with young sparring artists hoping to excel, artists who are already in the music industry and very well known such as 50 cent, T-Pain etc. and artists who may not be well known as of yet but are slowly building up their publicity through music videos.
Some would argue that hip-hop videos present women as empowered people who are confident and use their sexuality to exploit men by making money out of them. Females enjoy the compliments they get from males and it makes them feel more special and wanted, however some females admitted to using male needs, e.g: sex and visual pleasure appealing to the libido, in order to make money when men are willing to pay them.
People say that the sexualised representation of women in hip-hop videos (and the representation of men as powerful) is an integral part of the genre and just a bit of fun. The videos are just fantasies of what clubs/parties for example can be like. A member of K.I.G (Funky House artist) said that girls are essential to the industry, and they are what makes the videos. This makes a big gap in the market for females to use their body and appearance to boost their confidence, feel wanted and make money. From a male perspective, 'you need girls who are good looking to sell videos because sex and violence sell'. This is an example of Laura Mulvey's 'voyeuristic objectification' where females are 'needed' as if they are only useful to promote yourself as a hip-hop artist. Moreover, Boys expect girls to dance and behave in a certain way now because of music videos, so in a way, music videos tell girls what they need to look like and how to behave in order to be accepted, and if they don't act this way, they aren't wanted. This is the mentality some girls have so would go to lengths such as exposure of them-self in order to gain that acceptance.
This poses a risk on the female gender as they are more or less being used as sex items and may even be in danger of being sexually abused as 'Alisha' experienced from doing a shoot.
Another issue is the fact that some girls don't even get paid for what they do, and are therefore mis-lead by the information male artists give them which comes back to they issue of females just being used as objects for men to get what they want.
The portrayal of men and women in hip-hop videos creates an unrealistic and dangerous set of expectations in real young men. By the younger generation viewing how females are treated, this would influence them, and give them the idea that it is okay to view and treat a woman in such a way and take advantage of her.
It also creates expectations for how girls should look e.g: big bum, big breasts, pretty face. It makes girls think that they aren't good enough how they are already and influence them to get bum implants such as 'China Black' who thought her bum wasn't round and big enough for her to be accepted into a video shoot. This relates to Laura Mulvey's 'Male gaze' theory where males admire these assets and gain sexual pleasure from looking at them which essentially objectifies a female and makes her desirable.
Digital Dan said 'you can more or less buy a girl with money and she'll do anything' - this makes females look desperate to make money off males regardless of what they may have to do. So money is the stimulus which drives girls to want to become a video girl. Some girls claim to do it because they have financial problems as a young single parent or to make them feel better about them-self. This still raises issues on whether it is right to effectively 'sell themselves' to provide for the bare necessities.