Audience and Their Importance

Within any media audience is the most important part, if there’s not an audience for it then there’s no point in making it. Although there isn’t as much importance in music videos as there is TV programmes or magazines, it still makes the artist and song more popular. The more popular a song gets the more people will buy it and therefore the more money is made allowing them to make more music and videos and therefore becoming more popular. Another way in which artists make money is by doing live shows and tours, these rely greatly on having an audience that want to go to see them. These are great ways of gaining more fans as their audience may take friends that haven’t previously heard of them or have only just been introduced.
Yet another way that artists make money is by selling merchandise, depending on how popular the artist is the fans could pay a lot of money to get a t-shirt at a show, for many bands that are starting out this is their main source of income and many times, mainly when they play support shows, they man the stalls themselves to talk to existing fans and try to make more, this merchandise is a lot cheaper than that of popular artists and so the audience are more willing to pay for it.


Examples of band merchandise

Music Genres and Video Types Linked To Each Genre

Over the years many genres of music have been created and with each has come different stereotypes as to what should be featured in videos. Typically a video for a song of the rock genre would have shown the band dressed up in the fashion of the time ‘rocking out’ on a stage in front of a crazy audience, this has stuck with many videos and it is unusual for a band not to have a video that fits this. Yet recently there has been a great trend in story telling videos, ones that partly follow the lyrics of the song and tell a story, usually these are combined with clips of the band playing. These types of videos have dispersed over more that one genre of music and are just as likely to be featured in R&B videos, with clips of the artist singing. Another convention of R&B videos is that of choreographed dancing, artists seem to want to show that they have more talents other than that of singing.



Alexandra Burke - Broken Heels



The Blackout - This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Songs that are of the rap genre however seem to feature skimpily dressed women as well as money, both of which are things that are stereotypically associated with rappers.
Mainstream music usually consists of a few genres, such as rock, R&B, rap, dance and pop, rather than that of folk or country. This could be because the radio stations are trying to attract younger people, teens – 30’s, rather than older people, or it could be because there’s not a lot of that genre being created in comparison to the other genres. This also leaves the music channels to show more mainstream music in which the videos all seem to follow the same conventions, they all contain the artists and other people of whom are not associated with them.

Ways In Which Audiences Can Access Music Videos

Music can be accessed in a variety of different ways each have their advantages to different people, thanks to the internet it has become a lot easier to access music to stream and to buy. Many people use YouTube to stream music as well as watch the videos; YouTube is the most popular website for viewing music videos. As well as this the radio is one of the most popular ways of finding new music, especially by artists that are new as well as listening to new genres. Another very popular way of finding new bands is MySpace, the social networking site allows new bands and artists to upload tracks for their audience to listen to, they often create a large fan base on MySpace before they become a mainstream artist.



Still one of the most common formats to buy music on is the CD, as they are vastly available in shops as well as online, some people prefer to collect CD’s of the artists rather than only having the mp3 version on their computer. Downloading is becoming the most used method of purchasing music, stores such as the iTunes store are easy to use and have no limit on the amount that can be downloaded, and with the option to buy single songs as well as whole albums it gives customers more choice of what they buy. ITunes also includes a program which suggests songs based on what had previously purchased, this allows customers to listen to new music that they wouldn’t have usually downloaded as well as discover new artists that may not be mainstream at the time.



With the development of the internet there was also the development of file sharing sites on which people can upload files to share with friends, this allows people to access music for free, it is not illegal but it did lead to a rise in media files that breached copyright, including the software Napster and others. It is a simpler way of downloading a lot of music without having to spend a penny although this means that the artists don’t get the royalties from the record and loose out on money.

The Music Industry

The Music Industry sells recordings, performances and compositions of music. Since 2000 sales of recorded music have dropped substantially while live music has increased in importance. Four "major corporate labels" dominate recorded music - Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI - each of which consists of many smaller companies and labels serving different regions and markets. Apple Inc. is the largest Internet based music store with iTunes Store.

The music industry is made up of various people including individuals, companies, trade unions, not-for-profit associations, rights collectives and other bodies. Professional musicians including a range of people create recordings of their music and play live shows, to publicize themselves as they are not done so by a record company. Many artists hire songwriters and composers to help make and record their tracks. These people as well as the performers get part of their income from copyright collectives and organisations such as the ASCAP and BMI that ensure the composers and performers are compensated when their song is played on the radio or used on TV. When artists make a CD or DVD the process is often coordinated by a record producer, their roles can consist of anything from suggesting songs and backing music to a full hands-on approach, coaching singers, giving advice to session musicians of their style of playing and working with the sound engineer to shape the recorded sound with the computer technology.

 Many artists sign with record labels, which are companies that finance the recording process in return for a share of the rights to the recording. Record companies manage brands and trademarks in the course of marketing the recordings, they can also oversee the production of music videos for broadcast or retail sale.
Record labels that are not under the ‘big four’ are known as independent or ‘indie’ labels. Some music critics prefer to use the term indie label to refer to only those independent labels that adhere to criteria of corporate structure and size and some consider an indie to be any that releases non-mainstream music.

 A record distributor company works with record labels to promote and distribute music; once a CD is recorded the company organizes the shipping of the CD’s to stores. When CDs are sold and songs/albums downloaded from websites such as the iTunes store, part of the money gained is then paid to the performers in the form of royalties.

Successful artists may hire a group of people from other fields to assist them. A band manager will oversee all aspects of the artist’s career in exchange for a percentage of the artist’s income. A business manager will handle financial transactions, taxes and bookkeeping. A booking agency will represent the artist to promoters, make deals and book performances. A road crew is a temporary touring organisation that travels with the artist, this is also made up of many people, such as a tour manager, staff to move equipment and set up the stage as well as doing stage lighting and instrument tuning and maintenance. The tour manager’s main tasks involve setting up accommodation and making sure it’s all confirmed, as well as this they may also be required to find equipment if the venue does not have it, for example if the band need a grand piano then the tour manager would be in charge of hiring one and making sure it is suitable for the show at hand. They would also be in charge of making sure there are replacement instruments as well as a repair person on standby.

Why Music Videos Are So Important

From the start music videos were a way of publicising artists that were perhaps not mainstream enough to receive radio play, as more music video channels were launched more music videos were shown as were a wider variety of genres. Many people saw the release of the channel MTV and the beginning of an era, where music isn’t just focused on the singer’s vocal ability but of what else they can do. Yet there were also many that considered this a bad thing as music would be related a lot more to the looks of the artists and not their singing.
Yet they were not as important as they are today, people have expectations that if a single is released then there will be a video to accompany it. There are many people that start to like a song because they had seen the music video first, this is one reason why music videos are so important, if the audience can relate to either the song itself or the actions within the video then they are more likely to buy the song, creating money and publicity for the artist/band.
There are many artists that have became famous because of one of their music videos, such as OK Go with their single Here It Goes Again, the video they made to accompany it was filmed on treadmills in one continuous take, it won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video and the 2006 YouTube Award for Most Creative Video. Since it was released on 31^st July 2006 it has been viewed over 52 million times.

Ok Go - Here It Goes Again

History of Music Videos

Music videos originally developed from composers displaying still images during live performances this was developed into musical short films produced by Warner Bros that featured bands, vocalists and dancers. They were usually about six minutes long and featured animations in art deco style accompanied by film of the performer singing the song. These shorts can be considered the earliest music videos.

 After this many animations were built around music including Fantasia and the short, Silly Symphonies. Warner Brother’s cartoons such as Looney Tunes were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brother’s musical films.
 An early version of the music video came around in ‘Soundies’, these were three minute musical films produced between 1940 and 1946, the last ones being released in March 1947. They were available to watch on the Panoram, a coin-operated jukebox located in nightclubs, bars, restaurants and amusement centres.
 Musical films are another precursor to music videos, several music videos have imitates the style of classic Hollywood musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s. One of the best known example of this is ‘Material Girl’ by Madonna which was closely based around Jack Cole’s ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’. Another artist that used Hollywood influences is Michael Jackson, in his videos for Thriller and Bad, the latter directed by Martin Scorsese and influenced by the stylised ‘fight’ scenes in West Side Story.

Madonna - Material Girl

Top - Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend. Bottom - Material Girl

The rise of popular music was very much down to the rise of television as it allowed for many artists that would have been passed over by Hollywood to be exposed.
 One of the earliest performance clips was the promo video made by The Animals for their first hit ‘House Of The Rising Sun’. The clip was high colour quality and filmed in a specially designed set using tracking shots, close-ups and long shots as the band walked around the set in a series of choreographed moves.
 Music TV was introduced in the late 1970s with the long-running show Top of the Pops, and although the BBC places strict limits on the number of ‘outsourced’ videos they could use, people still tuned in every week to see if the good videos were shown again.
 In 1981 the video channel MTV launched airing ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ and marked the beginning of 24-hour- a-day music TV. By the mid 1980s music videos played a central role in music marketing by allowing more artists to promote their music. Many influential artists of this time such as Adam and the Ants, Madonna and Duran Duran, owe much of their success to the construction and appeal of their videos.



The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star

As time went on and more music channels were introduced there was a greater output for different genres and in 1996 MTV2 launched showing more alternative and older music videos. In 2005 the website YouTube allowed easier and faster access to videos and allows unknown artist to upload their material and be discovered. As the internet developed there are many other sites from which to watch music videos and with such programs as iTunes, they can be downloaded and put on portable devices, allowing for an even wider range of viewing.

Over the years many music videos have been deemed unsuitable for a television audience, the first of which was ‘Body Language’ by Queen because of lots of skin and sweat, however they did air ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton-John, one that featured male models working out in string bikinis. In 2004 family groups and politicians wanted the video for ‘Call on Me’ by Eric Prydz due to women dancing in a sexually suggestive way, yet it wasn’t actually banned. Lady Gaga is also an artist to have her videos banned for inappropriate content, yet clean versions have been released for public viewing.