She started as a singer, then moved into writing and then into managing.
*Find a band in a pub that people are excited about before they become popular.
An artist who has a deal but who has been putting his music only on Spotify, can be outcome by an artist that even though doesn't have a deal, he has been putting his work on YouTube or other platforms like TikTok and has been going viral.
"Put your record on" is a song that was originally uploaded by Corinne Bailey Rae 5 years ago, but 3 months ago a unknown artist named Ritt Momney made a cover of her song. A shot time after that, a girl who already had a large following on TikTok did a makeup tutorial using as a background the cover of "Put your record on". The video went viral over night. Now, the song has been streamed for 5.8 million times.
£500.000 - 100M streams
This is the original song:
This is the cover of the original song:
Are physical copies still relevant?
It depends on the country and the area, but they they are. Vinyls are coming back. In China they sell almost more physical then digital. It's in such small numbers tho, that compared to how it used to be we can argue that physical copies are not really relevant anymore.
The rules of this business are that you have to know what you want and u have to have integrity.
Really research into the music and being creative.
"If I was starting now I would start collaborating and writing right away."
I choose to do a logo for the band "Nine Inch Nails". My aim was to make it as simplistic as possible, but still have an artistic side of it in order to draw people's attention. The limited range of colours (red and black) suggest the genre of the band - hard rock-. I choose specifically red and black because red symbolises excitement passion, danger, energy and action and put next to black it intensifies the feeling of danger.
I also did the logo for the band "Smashing Pumpkins". For this I kept the same sense of simplicity. The visual is linked to the title.
This is America' was released in the US on 5 May 2018 to coincide with Donald Glover hosting 'Saturday Night Live'. This song was not announced but ironically, that is one of the reasons why it got so much attention. Donald Glover or Child Gambino, which is the musical stage name, is an American actor, rapper, comedian, writer and producer, so he already had a dedicated audience before publishing this video which made the success possible. The director and Childish Gambino haven't said much about the video. By doing that, people analyse on and on, making this video relevant for a long period of time
I first watched this video in 2018, and I remembered being very shocked of how well this controversial theme of social issues in America was conveyed only through a song and a visual masterpiece. To me, the main message that I first identified was how in America people usually use the media, dance or in general the trends to ignore the real problems like racism and gun violence. This is shown by literally putting the audience in this position while watching the video: the people dancing are focused, while the background where the violence is happening is blurred out. I also noticed how after every shooting the arm 'used' by Gambino was taken away in a red material, while the victim was dragged off carelessly.
Now, after watching it multiple times and reading about it, I found out that there are several symbols introduced in the video such as the position Gambino has when he shoots the first men which is referring to Jim Crow which was a caricature commonly used as a reference in Minstrel shows in the 1800s and 1900s where white actors would perform costumed as black people and act out black stereotypes. The fact that Childish Gambino himself does the movements himself might be showing that he is taking ownership of this image so he can't be hurt by it. This may also introduced to educate people, not only entertain them, while saying in a way that these problems with equality still haven't been solved like we want to think. Also worth mentioning is the fact that the Director choose to film in a empty white warehouse which maybe represents the structure that America is built on: white supremacy.
Another important moment in this video is when the second shooting happens. That moment obviously refers to the Charleston Church shooting when nine African American were killed during a Bible study by a 21-year old white supremacist.
Right after the shooting, the tone of the music changes from afro beats to trap music. obvious elements of afro beats
executive is somebody who would go out and find new talent and wprk with them and help them to become successful
Michael Anthony Alago was an executive for Geffen Records round in the 80s. He worked with Misfits, Cyndi Lauper and he signed arguably one of the biggest rock and metal acts in the worldP: Metallica.
What he would do is go to all the bars and night clubs in New York and watch out for new bands. One example of this is the band White Zombie.
What changed and how?
In this situation (working with the unknown band at that time called White Zombie), Michael Largo, from a major record label, is willing to sign bands who are not very good musically, but have something else about them that is marketable.
White Zombie appeared in the show called Beavis& Butt-head which was really popular back in the 90s. This marketing move really changer their game and catapulted it to a million units.
This is a result of this change in the NRA executive of being more about analysing data and seeing what is going on in the markets than the actual music.
What happened is Spotify and Apple bought major companies which study data. This is also joined by Sound Charts and Chart metric which really give hard data to see how the trend of artists are going. Based on these data they buy the artists when they are not that successful and sell their work when their value peaks.
Task:
Look at artists and see what it is that is special about them that can also be marketable.
1. Write a character sheet.
2. Go and find some unsigned music.
Useful websites: Band Camp, The Richer Unsigned
I wrote a character sheet of a Hard Rock band form my imagination.
After this I looked up a band similar to the one I created and I found on the website "The Richer Unsigned" a rock band called Barbarian Hermit.
Barbarian Hermit
This is a band of "five piece doom/sludge/stoner band based in Manchester, England. They were formed in 2013 and are currently signed to APF Records, through which they released their debut studio album Solitude and Savagery." Their album is now on Spotify too, so they started to put their work out there. But what would make them distinct then the other bands and special?
Watching the video form above, I noticed that they all have the same style: white males in their 40s with short hair and casual but pretty normal clothing considering the genre of their music. At first it seems that they are not that special but I think that embracing the norms to some extent while playing Hard rock music is not ordinary. Maybe exaggerating this contrast between their style of clothing and their music would draw attention.
Another marketing move that would make them well-known without needing any money, is creating an accessible website and creation an instagram account, maybe ever creating a filter on Instagram with their label.
Later on when they would get more and more famous, they could also collaborate with fashion trends and create clothes with their album cover which I think is already pretty distinct, considering that it drew my attention when I was scrolling through multiple album records on "The Richer Unsigned".
"Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water" by Limp Biscuit is a hard rock album which was launched in 2000 and it's made up of 15 songs.
The cover of the album establishes the genre of the music right away through the dark and muted colours and the odd human bodies that almost look dead. The image reflects the unordinary long title and creates a horrifying
Youtube has made it possible for everyone to upload a video and even make money out of it.
Concept videos where it't not so much about the artist itself, but about the idea of the video. A good example for this is "OK GO". To sum up it is possible for an artist to draw attention through their videos more than through the actual music they have created.
Over time, the "OK GO" started creating high budget videos. The most recent video is "Upside down& Inside out" and while they still kept the same style of single extreme long shot video based on a really well thought idea, they developed it even more with the help of money and experience.
Task:
1. Find first music video for a band or artist.
2. Make a few notes about what you think the label was saying about them in that video.
One of the first music video of Shakira is "Whenever, whenever". I think that through her video she highlighted her culture as a latino woman. She also included the idea of voyeurism in her video to maybe attract the male gaze and ultimately draw attention. She also portrayed her artist image as a rebellious through her outfits. She also compares herself and her dancing to a flying vulture to show that she is an instinctual powerful woman.
Interestingly, her style changes especially singe she has become a mother, and her videos are way less sexualised. The tone of her music is still the same, but maybe more mature, like in the "Girl like me" video.
One of the first Limp Bizkit's video is "Rollin" after the 6th song from the album"Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavoured Water". Interestingly, they posted the first song 10 years after launching the album, probably because the music video wasn't essential to them as a hard rock band. The video itself was created when they were pretty successful, so it looks high budget as part of the video was filmed in New York on top of South Tower and they also used a Bentley Azure which is definitely not affordable to anyone. There are also a few female figures present in this video, but it's mostly men taking part in the video which shows that they are all about the music, and not the sexualised image of women.
The lyrics match the visuals in "Know me from". For example, when he said "iPhone 2" a board in the shape of a iPhone was handed to the artist. and when he said "Merky", Sormzy takes out his jumper and relieves his T-shirt on which "Merky" is written.
2. Link between the music and the visuals
visuals reflect the pace, rhythm and atmosphere of the music
limp biscuit- break stuff
3. Reflects the genre of music
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Marlyn Manson - Sweet Dreams
4. Use of intertextual references
a good way of making the audience feel clever
Madonna - material girl
5. Notions of looking and voyeurism
Shakira - Hips don't lie
6. Reflective of the record label
OK GO - Here it goes again
"Here it goes again" is a video based on only one shot fo a couple a=of tread mills and 4 artists. It is obviously low budget.
Dyer has written excessively about the role of stars in film, TV and music.
- a star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (eg videos, artwork, performances, media appearances).
- stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings.
- by selling the artist more then the music they get loyal fans
- stars depend upon a range of subside rate media
- "selling the product person rather then the product"
1. Star is a construction
2. The star as a commodity
3. The star is an ideology
The star image is incoherent.
Paradox 1: "The star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer"
Paradox 2: "The star must be present and absent for the consumer"
Example: Amy Winehouse
- her image as an artist was rebellious, anti-authoritarian, confident with a complicated love life and addicted to drugs/ alcohol.
- This image was created through her physical appearance, attitude in interviews and songs and the rumours spread through media often exaggerated or even fake
This is an example of news that took part in creating her controversial image:
