Excellent - your response is detailed and through and you have been creative with your blogs, I particularly like the use of headings with good layout and design. The slideshow adds variety to the presentation of your blog.
You have a secure knowledge and understanding of who you want your artist to be signed to; perhaps you could link this further by stressing the advantages that your artist has signed to the particular record label? Your clearly identify your target audience and have profiled them well, but could develop this with the use of VALS - though I am not sure that it is JINCARS A1 - perhaps this needs to be revised.
Excellent research into CD covers and you have a wide range of examples, and this would be developed further if you can link the real product to how it will influence your own designs, which you have began to formulate. Well done.
These two images are the front cover and the digipak of our band - Infernal. I was influenced by The Who, who used the mod symbold in order to make clear to the target audience that they support the mod subculture. As the scooter will be part of our music video, I thought that as a symbol would be good to use. The font is handwritten because I thought that it makes the band unique, down to earth and different - reinforcing the Indie style. I got inspired by a cover by the Kinks and therefore I put the four members of the band together, which would signify that they are talented, together, unique and mysterious at the same time (second pic. diff colouring, hidden faces). The colours are dark, but stylish. The fact that in the first cover there is spray on top of the symbol, stands for the mods changing, reinforcing the new.
Infernal will be signed to Parlophone Records because I think that the fact that the record company is a subsidiary of a Major company - EMI - it would be of a befenefit to our band. It is a well known that especially nowadays when the industry is so hard and marketing the products well is even more essential the quality, the financial support of a Major company would be of a great use, also taking the fact that our band is new-coming own. So, we will need (theoretically) as much resources as possible in order to promote the band to the audience. Additionally, taking the fact that EMI is a conglomerate, synergy will be very useful in order to attract the audience by using magazines, TV shows and radio appearances etc.
Nevertheless, I wanted to create an organic image of our band rather than synthetic, for which the Major companies are famous for, after all commercial music brings the most profits for the labels. Therefore the might be willing to take more risks and invest in bands that are creative and talented. It is important for me that a creative freedom is given to the artists. So, the myth that this is impossible in Major companies is not right, in my opinion because the facts show that they are quite versatile. The indie band Radiohead used to be signed with EMI, which speaks for itself. Nevertheless, they released 2 albums independently after the first 3; there are always advantages and disadvantages, but I would like to take advantage of the benefits of the company, but also give the band as much freedom as possible in their creative work. In addition, artists, such as Coldplay, The Verve and Babyshambles
are currently signed to it, which are similar to the image we want to create.
Target Audience - Profile:
In terms of demographics our audience would mainly be, I would call it indie-mod youth culture. So, the age range will be from 16-25. I think that the target audience should not be younger than 16 because you need to be mature enough in order to understand what the mods stand for and still be part of it. The fact that we are using an old track, but with a modern kick to it makes it different and therefore indie. So, people who like to go to live performance concerts (often people who like Indie music) are part of our concept. After the psychograpic profiling system - VALS, I think our target audience will be Experiencers - young, enthusiastic, impulsive and rebellious and in terms of Teenage VALS - Innovators, possibly Rebels.
We should not forget the current Mods, which will be the secondary target audience. Normally, they form clubs and own scooters and dress in a typical Mod style. They will be 25+ age range because normally it is quite expensive to be a club member. So, you would fit to Achievers possibly and Experiencers (VALS) and in the JICNARS scale Group A.
This is a good post which examines the music industry as institution. There is clear knowledge and understanding of the role of record companies and the artist signed to them. A particular strength is how you have compared the two record companies and contrasted the strategies used. You may be interested in this link: What is a record company?
- The majority of entries in the charts and recognisable artists in music all belong to the most successful record companies
- The music industry is dominated by four major companies: EMI, Universal, Warner Music, Sony BMG, who own a collection of smaller record labels
- Each label has a roll-call of artists who have signed a recording contract. Universal Music Group have signed: Bon Jovi, U2, Eminem, Elton John etc.
- The record companies are responsible for an eclectic mix of music artists and production. No company specialises in one style of music
- AOL Time Warner (parent company of Warner Music) own a substantial slice of Hollywood film production + CNN, HBO etc. -> this synergy assists in the promotion of music within other media formats
Characteristics of major companies' strategies:
- all successful business ventures are based on the concept that money invested is recouped with a profit and various strategies need to be employed in order to maximise profits - it is claimed that 90% of music companies' products fail to make a profit, so they will rely on the 10% that incur a substantial income -> these few artists wil subsidise the losses made by the majority - companies therefore prioritise a small group of well-established artists on their labels - repackaging the familiar is apparent in major companies' preoccupation with easily-identifiable genres of music - music genre allows a product to be promoted easily based on familiarity (it explains certain musical trends for particular genres like Metal, Grunge, EMO etc. - symbiotic relationship with other media industries; genres are marketed to existing audiences via 'niche' advertising strategies; the identifiable target audience are given access to artists via radio, the music press and TV channels that 'specialise' in similar genres e.g. a Goth/Metal band would give interwies in Kerrang! magazine - prioritising the commercial over the creative within the multi-national companies can result in tension between artists and their labels; commercial pressures can result in artists being dropped from their labels when their product fails to sell the required number of copies! a guaranteed seller music has to be produced -> replicating a certain style and sound
- The term independent refers to companies that are independently owned and completely separate from the majors - some indie companies are much smaller consisting of one label only - whatever the size, a range of artists are signed and the production, distribution and exhibition cycle exists in generally the same manner as the majors - often independent companies are amalgamated with the majors such as Virgin, Mute which are part of EMI now - significant independent players are Martin Mills' Beggars group which consists of individual labels (XL - The Prodigy); a recent addition to the sector is Domino Records (Arctic Monkeys) - ideology - contrary to majors - privileges music as a creative art form, risk taking ventures; - artists sign under the impression that they will be given artistic freedom (Arctic Monkeys rejected offers from major labels in favour of Domino) - it cannot be assumed that bands/artists on indie labels produce 'alternative' non-mainstream style music that will not attract a mass market (Arctic Monkeys)
Majors vs Indies - not everything is 'ground-breaking', how alternative are actually these bands? - it is wrong to think that the majors only produce formulaic material - Radiohead are on Parlophone (EMI owned) and have indie image -> this challenges assumptions that the majors are interested only in manufactured bands and the Pop Idol brigade, major labels encouraging diversity; more likely to allow creative control because they are securing the coffers with the mainstream pop arm of the company - they also have a secure destribution network in order to promote less formulaic albums from e.g. Radiohead -> diversity is available within the mainstream and within easy access of a wide audience - indie labels lack of money is problematic when competing with the economic weight of the majors - records that have an expensive marketing campaign to accompany the release will attract a wider audience, complete with numerous TV appearances, radio etc
We developed and changed slightly our original idea, but the full one is explained in the pitch below, which I prepared in order to create a clearer vision of our ideas and introduce them to our teachers:
In this blog post I am going to present our proposal for the music video and first developement ideas:
Name: Infernal
We thought of a name of the band and due to the fact that we wanted a meanigful name, which would actually symbolize something and people might have specific assiociation with it we chose the name Infernal. Since we decided that we wanted to concentrate on Mod style we thought that a modern, but also different name might be the right for us. It is a synonym of "limbo" and I suggested that it will be suitable for our concept because it would remind the audience of hell, which is concept needing further research. However, an additional meaning to it is a very intense and uncontrolled fire. I did some research on the Mod subculture and found out that in the late 1970s there were some mod rivals, which would suit the name as well.
We are thinking of Mod style, which is very interesting because the modern interpretation might aspire to creative decisions within the music video we would like to shoot.
Type of act: live performance
Our initial plan was to shoot a live performance with audience and fans. However, in order to be more innovative we would like to include a narrative/abstract approach to it, which we still have to discover. Nevertheless,, my personal opinion is that we should put a message across disregarding the song we are going to choose because it is important to be clear about the influence and the impact we would like to have on the audience.
Star Image: Mod style based
The clothes will be quite important (Mod often included tailor-made suits). The concept used to be continuous reinvention - mod = modern.
The picture is the Royal Air Force roundel, a mod symbol
So, our idea which we had to shoot the video in black and white with red accessories also suits the mod symbol of that time.
Target Audience:
The target audience would be young teenagers who are interested in a different type of music, like older music and prefer this type of music rather than the conventional pop or synthetic images which are created nowadays. So, a niche audience is the target one. I think that both female and male audience would be interested because teenagers usually like to be different and rebelious which is exactly the concept we would like to approach, but still not limit ourselves.
Choice of track:
The track we chose at first was The Kinks - All of the Day and all of the Night because it was quite up-beat and we all liked it. However, we thought that the lyrics are not very long and the song was too short (under 3mins). We would not have been able to be as create as we would like to be if we cannot interpret the lyrics due to the fact that there is not enough material in them. So, we decided to do another song by the Kinks - I'm Not Like Everybody Else. We really liked the fact that it is slower at the beginning and then gets faster, which means that we could interestingly use the variation in the beat. The lyrics are also interesting and there are two important themes we would like to explore and I find engaging as well - love, identity, personality. The song also symbolizes and rises some of the important themes of the mod subculture.
You have produced proficient work with your blog. There is a good understanding of what the task demanded. I do make use of different blog tools and are able to link ideas to real media concepts.
You could add more Hyperlinks's to support the good work you have done. If you need to change the song you want to do - evidenced the informed choice of your reasons
Our first approach to the song as a group and development of first ideas for the music video, we illustrated by printing out the lyrics of the song and annotating as much as we can. So, these were our initial thoughts:
Once the groups were settled my group - Nina Jakobsen, Charlotte Morgan and me, tried to discuss some ideas that we have/share for a possible song we would like to cover. Our initial idea was to find a real band from MySpace for example without needing to use a cover, but an original song. However, this might be a little bit difficult to do. Nevetheless, we are going to try and find one, but in the mean time we will start planning the song we would cover in case we will not be able to find a band on time.
We thought that picking an older song e.g. 70s might be a good idea because often their music videos are not very good and we wanted to show creativity. In addition, we thought that it would be interesting to create a star image for a new band, but with an older song. The next step was a possible music style. We all liked rock/ indie style, so we agreed on this as well, which was a quite a good start for us. Therefore we thought that a live performance will be quite suitable for the style. Personally, I got inspired by Radiohead - Creep, which is also an indie band and I really liked the style and the different touch and edge on it. The fact that the band overall creates very interesting videos made me think that I would like to include something abstract, which will make the song different and hopefully unique as well. I was thinking that the close-ups of the lead-singer work quite well. In terms of the video itself we thought of a black/white shooting with red features eg. each member of the band would have something red (a scarf, a hat etc), which we thought will look quite edgy and will create an original look of the video. We all agreed that we would the song to be up-beat in order to have more fast cuts and lively setting. The songs we were thinking about were: The Kinks - "You Really Got Me" , "All Day and All of The Night" or The Clash - "Should I Stay or Shoul I Go"
It is essential to understand what a music video actually is and the concepts to it in order to be able to plan our own. So, here are some important points I would like to make:
"Music video is not primarily a commodity form but a promotional one"
(Andrew Goodwin, 1992)
This quote means that a music video is not just something useful, but a very good way of promoting music to the audience. A pop music video is a "promotional tool", which includes marketing, band, song, the IMAGE, which sells the record.
It is always a part of the construction of the image of a particular band or performer. Richard Dyer explains it with stardom. For example the music video "One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful" is a very good example to explain the synthetic image (artificially constructed). The video is stereotypical because they use the beach, young boys smiling, supposedly good-looking for a younger audience of mainly girls, mothers optionally and X-Factor fans because Simon Cowell was the one that put the band together, so they are known from the very famous TV show as well. It also signifies how conventional X-Factor actually is. They also used intertextuality from "Grease" (1978), the first chords of the song, in order to remind the audience of the film and sell their personalized star image. Therefore a music video is also part of its commercial context in the music industries. It can be also used in order to market other media products e.g. films (synergy). It is important that it is always accessible to the audience as this music video is.
A star constrast to it is the band Radiohead - Creep, whose image is by far more organic. It is independent and creative. The audience is older or still younger, but interested in Indie music. They are concentrated on the live performance and the focus is on the voice, talent of the lead, their instruments, which is shown with many close-ups. The atmosphere is quite moody and fascinating to watch due to the colours used and the lighting. That is why a music video is a creative artifact itself.
The music industry consists of 5 major music companies, such as Sony, Universal, Warner Music Group, BMG, which are conglomerates and EMI (only one British and national music company; only interested in music, not films etc). Together they own 76% of the British Music Market. A small number of companies which own and control the market/services and the industry are called oligopoly - this is what they represent. The star images (Dyer) which they create are synthetic because they are concentrated only on the profit they can make from the artists rather than allow them freedom in their music and creative process. These companies create star images, such as Beyonce, Jay Z (Sony), Lady Gaga, Eminem, Justin Bieber (Universal), which are created specifically in order to sell a certain type of image, commercialised and mass produced.
However, there are also the so called Minor companies - Independents, which own 24% of the music industry overall. Examples are Domino Records (Artic Monkeys, Lilly Alen), Ghostbox, Essential Direct. These artists have more creative control over their work. They create a more organic and authentic image for their artists (Negus).
Nevetheless, Keith Negus developed the theory of web of inter-dependency. He says that Major and Minor companies go hand in hand and that they depend on each other so that the music industry is in balance.
Here is an youtube video, which I found interesting and relevant to the topic explaining why big records labels are so great at creating superstars with Andy Epstein:
