Background to the music industry & theory

Genre
Genre is the classification of a text according to its style and content, also its form and manner of production. Genres are continually being invented, crossed and revisited, and the process of categorisation is an important one for producers and fans of music alike. The picture above lists a few examples of music Genres.

Each genre contains multiple sub genres and there are plenty cross overs and mash ups of genres. Genres have different sites of institutional support including  its performance spaces (such as nightclubs), radio stations, record shops, magazines and festivals.

Genre and Artist Image

Image is a large part of genre in the music industry, and artists promote their genre of music through their image, which is portrayed in the way they dress, photos of them, their album covers and the aesthetic of their music videos which will fit the genre for example hip hop and rap often has street looking individuals with lots of gold jewellery and fast cars whilst jazz might involve a performance in black and white with saxophones and an old style microphone etc.

Genre and Sales

In music retail and the selling of music, Genre is also a very important factor, as when people go to buy music they often stay within their genre and therefore it is important that when in a music store your music is categorised in the correct genre so that the buyer who is interested in that genre will purchase the music. Things like Spotify and pandora also rely on genre to tailor the song selection to your liking buy selecting songs of the genres you may be interested in listening to/buying.

Studying Pop stars

 In the list of the 100 greatest singers of all time, the majority of artists who are considered 'greats' are people who have passed away, such as Kurt Cobain, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse, Elvis Presley etc. what makes an artist even more appealing is if they are a member of the '27 club' which is a group of singers who all lived fast and died young. Their music continues to be bought and their legacy lives on, this is because they have a perfect beginning middle and ending to their story, which means that they didn't have a chance to move into a new genre of music to conform and then lose the interests of fans, and also their death creates news headlines which helps them re enter the chance and people regain interest. Michael Jackson for example sold more records post-mortem than he had in many years before his death in 2009.

These artists tend to embody the same set of values throughout history which include:

• youthfulness
• rebelion
• sexual magnetism
• an anti-authoritarian attitude
• originality
• creativity/talent
• aggression/anger
• a disregard for social values related to drugs, sex and polite behaviour
• conspicuous consumption of sex, drugs and material goods
• success against the odds. 

The death of the star allows them to be re-marketed with perhaps a new image, as they have, after their death, truly become a star. 

This can be linked to  Richard Dyers theory of stars, which states that a star is an image not areal person that is constructed out of a range of materials (e.g. advertising, magazines etc. as well as films or music).

The purpose of the star is to make money for the record company, and so they try to provide the audiences with the star that they think they want, which is why you get many stereotypes when it comes to boy bands, rappers, pop stars etc.

Dyer said: "stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings. The industry is well aware of the range of audiences it caters to, the perky pre-school tweenie fan to the ageing hippy, and it does its best to keep us all happy. Historically, the industry has provided us with a range of commodities all with different appeal. One way to achieve this is by producing new stars of different types playing constantly mutating genres of music - theres always something and someone fresh to choose from. Another way is to produce a star with long-lasting appeal, who , once their brand is established, can cater to a fan audience for decades (U2 and rolling stones)".

It has been very beneficial studying the background to the music video and the theories here, from the articles provided as it will help me when i create my own music video promo and have to create a star image and brand for the artist we have to market.