Homework reminder

• Write an essay on your musical consumption – at least 1.5 side of A4:– What music do you listen to and why?– How do you find out about new music?– How do you listen to it and why?– How much do you spend on your music

consumption?– Compare your consumption to that of your

age group in the Hertfordshire survey.

Learning objectives reminder (yesterday and today)

- Recap downloading and consider your own music consumption

- To consider the role of the A&R department and the “consumer as producer”

Starter: Hertfordshire data survey recap

• What were the main conclusions from the survey?

• Were there any flaws with the survey?

iTunes

From your won knowledge and experience and from the article on wikispaces:

- How does iTunes work?

- How and why did it start?

- What impact is it having on the record industry?

Music Industry

Music and Artist Promotion

A & R• A&R stands for artist and repertoire. It is the division

of the record label that attempts to discover and then manage/market new talent.

• Task: Discuss the ways in which a new music artist can be discovered, promoted and marketed by a record company’s A&R and rank them according to their effectiveness

• Radio airplay• Live performance/club nights• Music press interviews• Reality TV shows• Promotional videos• TV appearances• Websites• Word of mouth (from who? Industry insiders…)

A & R continued• Most of these are traditional ‘pre-digital’ ways of a

promoting/marketing a new artist and most are still being used by the industry.

• However in recent years some artists have embraced the internet to promote themselves. Why?

• Exposure - Potential to be seen or heard by millions.• Directness - Cuts out the record industry - no auditions

demos, concert performances.• Cheaper – You can make your own music and even

your own video very cheaply without a record company's financial help.

• Freedom – Allows you to express yourself in the way you want.

The future of A&R?

• As a result of falling record sales, many A&R staff have been made redundant.

• It is not clear whether A&R executives will still shape the future of musical tastes in the same way they have in the past.

“The consumer as producer”

- Think of any media you have created:- Who experienced it?- How?

Marxism

- The Marxist approach:- Karl Marx said that one reason the working

masses (proletariat) were being controlled by the “dominant ideology” was through the media.

- The “dominant ideology” of the government and big businesses control the “means of production’.

- In the new ‘digital’ world the “means of production” is increasingly handed over to new groups of society – us! The masses and not the dominant ideology are setting the agenda for making media.

Some clarification

• “Means of production” – those things (e.g. land, natural resources, technology) actually needed for the production of material goods

• “Ideology” – ideas that reflect interests of a particular class as particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as eternal and universal truths

More food for thought

• Marx believed that under capitalism, the means of production change more rapidly than the relations of production (for example, we develop a new technology, such as the Internet, and only later do we develop laws to regulate that technology – this is relevant to our discussions about the digital music industry and how it is regulated)

• Marx also believed that the control one class has over the means of production includes not only the production of manufactured goods but also the production of ideas

“It’s a trend…about a new democracy of ideas and information, about changing notions of authority, about the releasing of individual creativity” Alan Rusbridger, Editor-in-chief of The Guardian

The consumer as producer

• Why are the “means of production” being handed over to us?

- Cheaper, smaller, ease of use – “idiot proof”

- What are we using new media technology to produce?

- Films (DV cameras, i-movie etc) - TV (Community Channel, Multi Channel satellite)- Music (home recording, distribution, pirate radio)- Written word (Desktop publishing, internet blog sites)

Case Study - MySpace and ‘user generated content’

MySpace is a social networking site.

It specialises in ‘user generated content’. What does this mean?

Initially it began as version of MSN, wherebypeople could simply chat to each other.

It has now become a forum for debate, a promotionalspace to promote whatever product/service you have, or aplace where you can post photos/messages etc.

My Space has been bought out by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

However, it is widely recognised that its popularity is declining – what sites have replaced it?

Lily Allen and MySpace

• It has been claimed that pop artist Lily Allen’s fame is also due in part to her being promoted on MySpace.

• In response to an interview question "The way it's been portrayed in the media, is that you were almost like discovered by MySpace; how accurate is that?" Allen responded "Not accurate at all, I had a record deal before I set up my MySpace account so, erm, that ... couldn't really be further from the truth."

• Nevertheless, Allen's work was widely circulated and gained popularity due to her MySpace profile.

• Allen’s success reflects the ‘digital zeitgeist’ of her fans and is perhaps a benchmark for the future whereby artists can cut out the record industry A&R completely.

Homework

• For a musical artist of your choice write 1/2 side of A4 introducing them and how they have been marketed:– Using traditional marketing?– Or non-traditional marketing?– Or a combination of both?