MUSIC INDUSTRY STRUCTURE - WHERE MY POP VIDEO FITS

In modern society, music has successfully placed itself in the epicentre of popular culture. However, its growing popularity is largely responsible due to music being an entertaining way of expressing personality, opinions and class, which is why most people’s taste in music is reflected in their lifestyle. Music has become a canvas of controversy; it exposes elements that the population are forced to be interested in: fashion, race, body and hair, which results in music deferring away from being an art form. When our group decided on the song “Ta Douleur” by Camille, it was a way of expressing music authentically through simple movements, rather than producing another synthetic video to please the populations’ desire for the norm, like JLS. Our video is organic, a real singer, singing her own song naturally.

There is great tension between the contrasting methods of producing music. Most songs are aesthetically pleasing, due to the commercial forces that underline the succession of the business. However, there are a small minority which produce organic songs, which is what our pop video is going to be like. Our pop video is in contrast with the normal conventions of the music industry, instead of filming the band members with their instruments inter cut with a narrative to express the topic, the two worlds are mixed together through the singer being the narrative. This is a dangerous risk to take in reference to the popularity of our product. Most of the music industry relies of ‘synergetic connections,’ with other media forms, this co dependence with other media means that a ‘mutual reliance’ can be productive but also risky.

In order for the music industry to boom, there are a number of ‘Major’ companies which are responsible for the producing of the pop video. These are Universal, Sony/BMG, Warner Bros and EMI, which are trans-national corporations which dominate the music world. Here is a link to Sony Music to show how Sony almost dominate the music industry: http://www.sonymusic.co.uk/

However, due to our pop video being slightly different to the main stream music which is produced, it is unlikely that a huge business like Sony would take it on. Therefore, they ‘Majors’ licence a string of smaller subsidiary companies in order to reach different audiences in different kinds of genre, these companies are known are ‘major-independents.’ Finally, there are a huge number of small companies which are unable to be licensed by major companies because they little or not financial muscle. This leads to the companies concentrating on specific artists which produce music targeting towards a niche audience. These are known as ‘independents.’ There is a bitter relationship between Majors and Independents because they are both music producing corporations, but produce such contrasting songs. The most likely corporation to produce ‘Ta Douleur’ is an Independent, firstly because it is in French and therefore a niche target audience is already decided, and the quirkiness and indifference will again defer other types of audiences.

However, it would be misleading to think the music industry is a hierarchy dominated by the Majors. Although some songs are better known than others, all songs have an audience whether they be niche or mass. The complexity of all the corporations can be referred to as a ‘web.’ Where the small companies try to gain access to bigger markets, and the bigger companies try to involve themselves in new artist and movements in popular music. Our pop video would be considered by a mini company which produces songs for a niche market.

The music industry as a whole has a complex relationship with a number of different Medias, such as Radio, TV, Print media, Film and New media. This is when synergy is created between two media forms, as they work together to produce something for the same audience, Sky and their newspapers are a good example of this.

There are many purposes to a pop video; it is not only for the audience to be entertained, there are complexities which are considered whilst in the production stage. These functions include; promoting a specific single, and usually then an album, by having a pop video for a song, the audience is able to relate better because much of our pleasure is through visual, as Kuleshov states that “70% of meaning is through images.” This is why our pop video is planned to be visually stunning, through the performance of the singer, and the colours and costumes etc. Also when someone listens to a song they can interpret a meaning, which the pop video can later decide to reinforce or undermines through a narrative in the video. This is similar to our pop video where the person she is trying to please and cheer up is in fact herself. It also promotes a specific artist or band, the first pop video is crucial is deciding what kind of artist is being created, and what kind of audience will be interested. This is why the first pop video is always the most important and thought about because it could make or break an artist. A pop video can create a ‘star image’ through the portrayal of the band members in their fashion, characteristics and hair style.

I have outlined many of the positive aspects to pop videos, and incorporated negative aspects which have consequently led to their succession. However, in our rapidly developing society the music industry is being threatened, and slowly becoming irrelevant. This is due to illegal downloading, manufactured programmes with live feeds, the vidvert and finally music television becoming more mainstream, such as MTV. Other threats for the music industry are that audiences are becoming slightly bored with the same sort of concepts being reproduced over and over again. When deciding our pop video we took this into account and that is why we picked to make a quirky and abstract song, which would be different to other songs being produced at the moment. Although it may mean that a niche audience will be targeted, the audience that is does attract will be interested because it is unlike other pop videos which are over produced. There may be a slight worry that soon pop videos will turn into live feeds of recording, and therefore no narrative and visual effects will be needed, however, personally I don’t think this will happen because our society enjoy being entertained through plots and characters, rather than singers and their instruments.