Richard Dyer

Another view of the music industry we have learnt about is Richard Dyer, who believes that the star we see, is not really themselves but an image constructed. He quotes "A star is an image, not a person, that is constructed by a range of materials eg. advertising, magazines".


He believes that the image is used in order to target their target audience, for instance Justin Beiber has an image of being young and innocent to target small teenage girls to purchase his music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4 JUSTIN BEIBER.

Richard also points out that there is two main paradoxes of the artist:

1. " I could do that"
"Shes amazing"
These factors encourage people to purchase the music as what we are seeing is extra ordinary and we cant do. It also dis courages small artists to carry on, reducing competition.

2. Having 2 images of the artists.

 Absent, the image that is unique and special which seperates them from the everyday norm.

Present, the normal more acessible type which people can relate to.









To show that an artist is just image, i have done some research on Micheal Jackson and how he has changed his image over time.

1. Jackson 5

Micheal jackson started off with being the youngest member of a band called the Jackson 5 in 1964, and becoming more successfull in the 1970's.

 

Here is one of their album covers, looking very cute and innocent, reflecting this image.

 

Started off looking very young and cool, with casual clothing and big afro. Their music was also the start of disco music, with songs such as ABC that were very lively.They were really the first group who appealed to both black and white audiences, being a black group themselves.

Micheals image in the group was being the small cute one, with an amazing voice.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho7796-au8U (ABC)

2. Solo

After jackson 5 started to do less well, micheal jackson started up his own carreer. His image now was more sexual, and more dance related. This attracted a older and younger audience who all fancied him.

He made songs that also had a more urban and cool feel to it such as beat it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRdxUFDoQe0

Other songs in this era such as Thriller again involved dancing, and elements like monsters and aliens that would help to show his image as being cool, scary and progressing.

 

This album cover is alot more sexualised, wih a close up and more colour.

 

This picture clearly shows the differences in image, before he was portrayed at young and cute, whereas now he is being shown more sexually, and he is clearly physically older.

3. Operation and new image

In the early 1990's micheals physical image changed, as he took surgery in order to change his skin colour to more white. He aslo had aged a little, making his image more mature.

This album cover shows less body and shows the eyes only, showing a more meaningful and complex micheal, reflecting his new image.

After this operation, micheal started to make songs with more meaning and with issues involved, reflecting his character being more caring and mature.

For example his song Black or White was about the issues of rascism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyBs6-cmFvQ

4. Recent years

In the recent years micheal jacksons music carreer has not been fully based on music, but public relations and news spread about him. At this stage his image was a lot older, yet had aspects of him showing his younger side eg he built a theme park at his house.

He was accussed of molesting children around this time, which made his image a bit wierd a different.

His last song was with Akon called Hold my hand which was for charity, again showing Micheal being more charitable and formal. Reflecting his image of being older and more mature, yet collabing with new artits such as Akon allows his image and Akons image to be well know, therefore selling more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gjjoM0wxKU

5. Death

Micheal jackson passed away,yet albums and films were still being purchased. Films showing the progression of his life enabled, a wider audience to hear his music. This gives Micheal an overall image as being the KING OF POP.

Negus

Recentley in class we have been talking about different theories about the music industry. One of them was Keith Negus who wrote the book 'Producing Pop' in which he describes two ways an artists image and carreers are developed. These two artists are called Synthetic artists and Organic artists.

A synthetic artist refers to a combinational approach to make the artist sucessful, this means that the artist has a series of different people assisting him/her to portray their image successfully, as the image is normally constructed by the record company in order to target its audience of younger teenagers, this is also why this type of artists record label releases as singles, in order to target younger audiences whos music taste is less complex and may not have the time to listen to full albums.

I did research on a synthetic artist called Pitbull.



I also did research on a more organic artist called Leona Lewis.

Start of A2 course

Recently we have started our A2 course to do with the music industry, which involves making a music video. I am very interested in the music industry, especially the electronic music industry as i am currently working for a record label called Inspected, who have signed artists such as KOAN sound and culprate, here is a clip of a tracks from the latest EP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Gywbsnfr0

I also am a DJ and played in clubs across the UK, with plans to do shows elsewhere in Europe during the summer. If im not playing at events i go with artists to watch them play and am allowed acess to backstage to meet new producers and DJ's.

 

Part of the course is designing an album cover, this is something that i find very intresting. Here is a few of my favourite EP and album covers, both from Inspected. I am also slowly starting to use photoshop and really enjoying it, even though my skills are not amazing, im sure i can improve, here are some examples.