Why Piracy is Perpetuating Plastic Pop

Privacy in the music industry is a big issue with people illegally downloading music, and copyrighting the artist work. If you did go round and ask people if they buy their music, most of them will say that they illegally downloaded their music online, as it doesn't cost anything and it's very simple. There are not many people out there in who buy their music either on 'Itunes' or 'HMV' as on the internet there are so many downloading websites to use, such as 'Youtube converter'. So this leads the pop stars have a hard time with the pay back in which they put with producing their work.



But one of the few artist who did make a big fuss about the whole privacy of copyrighting and illegal downloads was Lily Allen. But this did lead to a massive target of thousands of incredibly abusive messages, even death treats. It did lead for her to shut down her website. No wonder why artists think twice before speaking out.
Lars Ulrich from Metalica had the same response as Lily Allen when trying to persuade people to stop downloading music, he only had abusive responses.


The amount of unlicensed illegal downloading sites can be up to 25,000 per site of illegal downloading. This means that the artist who produces the work can see all their profit gone, as they are not gaining anything back afterwards. In 2009 the music industry claimed that 95% of the music available online is downloaded illegally. And with nowadays music is very expensive making, which can be up to millions of pounds to make, and of course the artist wants that million back and profit on top of that!


However a very poignant (and eloquent) message, came from Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins. In a discussion at this year's SXSW, he said 'Commerce starts at the point where people are happy with paying for something- and the fact that technology now allows people to choose to not pay for music has turned music culture into a service culture.' He explained the particular problem this poses for artist such as himself. 'I'm going to do whatever the fuck I want to do, you like it or you don't'. But then was saying I am I now suppose to beg for attention.

Corgan then concludes that if someone like him could be manufactured they wouldn't pick him as a model- they'd pick someone with straight teeth, a better attitude and music that was much more palatable to a wider audience. 

Studying pop stars

In this post I will be studying pop stars in which have really made it in to the music world, and then other artist who will never see 50 again. The pop stars who continue to sell, and to define upcoming
generations of singers. So for example 'Michael Jackson' is died
but it is seen to be the king of pop, and with all his very well known songs around the global his music is still being played now, and people still love it even though it has been played lots and not the most recent stuff.

'In such a youth-obessed medium, it's surprising that the dead are so venerated. Nonetheless, the members of the fabled '27 club' who lived fast and died young have all had long-lasting careers, i.e. their music has been adopted (and continues to be brought) by successive generations of fans. We can then argue that it is defining the qualities of pop music: that it is shaped by historical era and cultural context, that it is aimed primarily at the young, and that its value is dependent on the currency attached to it by it fans. 'While pop music changes, and is constantly evolving into a variety of hybrid forms, pop stars retain common characteristics. The songs change, but the singers remain the same. Weather your pop star gyrates their pelvis in 1951 or 2011, they embody the same set of values, namely:

* Youthfulness    

* Rebellion 

* Sexual Magnetism 

* An anti- authoritarian attitude 

* Originality

* Creativity/ talent 

* Aggression/ anger 

* A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour

* Conspicuous consumption, of sex, drugs and material good 

* Success against the odds 

But on the other hand, the longer the star remains successful on stage, it is more difficult to continue to embody these values. The originality and creativity burns out with the pop stars in which has spend decades on the stage. 

Pop stars offer use semi- mehological role models, and that's why so many great popstars die young, as they are too busy living out the dreams of the masses to work out who they really want to be. 

A Top 10 Of Dead Pop Heroes (in rough order of demise) 

1: Billie Holliday       6: Sid Vicious 

2: Jimi Hendrix          7: Karen Carpenter 

3: Jim Morrison         8: TupacShakur

4: Elvis Presley          9: Michael Jackson 

5: Sid Vicious           10: Amy Winehouse

Dyer's Star Theory applied to Pop Stars

As we understand songs differently on who singing them, as we see there personality or star persona is fused with the music and lyrics. A song forms part of a pop star's ongoing narrative (eg. with a 'break-up album;, like Adele's 21, or Eminem's self- explanatory and recovery).
So when a pop star dies, their lives can then be organised into a three- act narrative; their story (usually a tragedy). The songs become the soundtrack for that narrative. But if the star is died it doesn't mind the music is over. So for a example. When Michael Jackson dies, it was a shock to the whole world, and it hit all the headlines on the news, which meant that there was a massive tribute to his music. He sold more music in that week than he had done for years previously. So this is when producers, record companies and other interested parties start to make sense of the music, re- ordering and packaging it into a new brand. So this therefore Amy Winehouse's lioness is not marketed, as originally intended, as long- awaited comeback from a troubled talent, but as an obituary, the capping of a brilliant, but short career. 

A background to the music industry and some basic theory

Genre is a classification of a text according to it style and content, and possibly its form and manner of production. All the different media, pop media is the one in which is the most depended on genre, which includes the most widely different genres of texts. Genres are continually being changed and new inventions and revisted. This is really important of the process of categorisation for the producers and fans of the music alike.

So for example Girls Aloud are in the category of epitomize the shiny trash aesthetic of pop music.  

 

Broadly speaking, most music falls into one of these categories: 

* Pop (inculding global categories                      

   like Europop, Arabic pop,                               

   Cantopop, J- Pop, and K- Pop)                            

* Dance                        

 * Country and western 

* Folk          

* R&B 

* Jazz 

Hip- Hop/ Rap 

* Rock 

* Latin 

* Punk 

* Blues 

All of these categories in which I have named above contain a myriad of sub- genres of hybrids and mash- up of different kind of genres. But on the other hand each of these genres has unique musical characteristics (rhythm, instruments used for melody, lyric and vocal style) All of these factors can also be joined in with clothing, hair and lifestyle. Genres also have there specific sites of institutional support, including performance space (eg: nightclubs, radio stations, specialist record shops, magazines and festivals). 

Genre and Artist image: 

Genre and artist image is a massive role in how the artist portrays there music and what category they fall in. So for an example 'Its difficult to distinguish between many hip hop videos, all featuring baggily dressed homeboys sitting on steps or porches outside houses in a generic 'hood' swinging their arms and smiling at the booty passing by. Or perhaps driving slowly in big old open- topped cars round a generic 'hood' swinging their arms and waving at the booty they pass by. Similarly, all-girl or all-boy groups tend to go for videos shot in some warehouse, or other self-consciously urban setting, featuring them dancing in formation. If the look fits, wear it'.

Here are two different artists who portray there audiences and fans. It is clear that Adele is in the genre of 'Pop' and then Rihanna falls under the category of R&B. 

As I come to a conclusion with the understanding of the background to the music industry and some basic theory, I understand now that there are lots of different genre categories out there to chose from. This has made me think on which genre I will choose at looking at for my music videos. I have also learnt that with choosing a artist from a category, it is also making sure that the mise en scene is correct from the artist and genre. 

Trent Reznor and the formula for future music Business models.

Mike Masnick is the CEO and the founder of the company 'Techdirt', in which is a weblog of concentrates on technology news and other technology related issues in which are happening around the world.

The presentation formula: 

Connect with fans (CwF) + Reason To Buy (RtB) = The Business Model ($$$) 

So in January 2012 in Cannes, France, Mike Masnick gave a very powerful speech on how artists can cash without being signed to a label. As using Trent Reznor as his case study in his speech he made a very valid point. 'What made Reznor so interesting as a case study was the fact that he's done it so many times in so many different ways that he, by himself, represents a great example of how you can approach this simple formula in an infinite variety of creative ways.

Trent Reznor is an American songwriter, composer and record producer in which is talented at both vocal and multi instrumental. Reznor was the leader of the industrial rock band project 'Nine Inch Nails' which was since 1988. Then in 2007 he left Interscope Records and he is now an independent recording artist.

The ways in which Trent Reznor connected with the audience and fans so well was let alone successes by other musicians who have executed differently, but all of whom connected with fans (CwF) and then gave them a real reason to buy (RtB).
Then the second point that needs to be discussed is that a true reason to buy (RtB) is a voluntary transaction. As we see very often that musicians or other content creators think that there is some sort of obligation to buy. And, so they put something out with a price tag, but without doing a very good job convincing fans why they should buy.
There are many artist and producers that could be used as examples but Trent was specially very easy to obvious one as he does both and uses many different was to (CwF) and give them (RtB). Trent was also new how to use the internet well to (CwF) as he did through the use of his website were he put music, pictures, chats, forums, ect.

As I come to conclusion on lots of interesting facts on how the future music business models and how to approach to right fans and audience in the right ways was really useful, as I believe when doing our music video, Dit-pack and website we need to make sure that we approach the right fans and audience in the right way to get the real reason to buy.

Creating a film poster

At the beginning of our A2 course, our whole year was given a task to create a film poster from our thriller which we had created in AS. This was a great opportunity to experiment on Photoshop. I was very lucky at this point as I had an advantage of doing photography as another A-Level, so I knew on how to use all the tools and the basic skills in which we needed to know to make a film poster.

So as our thriller groups we all brainstormed ideas in which we could use, we then all came up with several ideas in which were based around having a city scape and involving the robbers and policemen.
I started my poster with getting a London cityscape image in which is suitable
from were our thriller sequence is based. So with searching the net I found a image which in the distance were the skyscrapers. It was a great image in which I could then work with and adjustments of vibrance, levels, brightness, ect..  When finishing the adjustments I wanted to add images of guys in balaclavas, guns and then text. This process was using the tools on photoshop which include all the cutting tools (lasso tool, polygonal lasso tool, magnetic lasso tool) all of these tools are all very useful for cutting out selective parts of images and then you can adjust them from there. I then played around on were I wanted my balaclavas, guns and text to be placed on the city scape background. I did adjust the contrasts as they looked a bit to harsh together. This really did make the whole poster much better and really pulled it all together. I then add some text to finish it off, I didn't want to add to much text, as I feel that the audience doesn't want to be looking at much text. As they are more appealed to what the images are to make them attracted to go and watch it.