Sunday, 10 May 2009
Week 11: Is the audience for popular music created by the music industry?
It could be argued that without the music industry’s intervention to create an audience for popular music, some artists would be far less successful. The music industry is far more than simply recording music; it is also made up of retail, press, merchandising and technology aspects. For example, would 16-year-old Miley Cyrus’ music be as popular without her accompanying television show, movie and masses of merchandise? The fact is that the main aim of the music industry is to make money, and if a particular type of music proves popular then record companies will release similar-sounding music in the hopes that it will have similar commercial success. This is why record companies tend to discourage artists’ creativity, and stick to a standardised format. Even in 1941 Adorno recognised that ‘standardisation extends from the most general features to the most specific ones’ in the music industry, with repetition being the key to success. Whilst some artists have emerged and created a fan base without the industry’s help, the industry is out for profit and helps generate as large an audience as possible for popular music to achieve this.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is a good final blog post. I would caution against overstating the idea that the industry discourages creativity, I think what they are prone to do is encourage repetition of successful formulas, which is subtly different. Overall though, this post answers the question well.
ReplyDeleteYour blogs are well written throughout and show strong, well considered approaches to the questions. You occasionally have a tendency to generalise but these are largely engaging and interesting responses
ReplyDeleteDO