Thursday 24 February 2011
Does Online Music Piracy destroy the Industry?
Record institutions have been recorded to saying various artist, some underground while most mainstream superstars will continue to lose money if audiences result to piracy as their means to listening to music. This statement cannot be faulted because a simple maths equation will show, somewhere down the line artist will lose millions of pounds collectively as a result of world-wide audiences choosing to illegally download their music for free and not to consume their music through a payment such as iTunes. The benefit to the consumer is that they get to listen to their favourite artist on repeat completely free. The negative side to the consumer—nothing, the blasé attitude of ‘What’s free is worth having’ is adopted by the cheap consumers. Many audiences would argue the poor state of the economy is a deterrent for those who don't mind paying for their music. However there are other means on the internet that allow audiences to listen to music for free but once they want to transport the file the website www.spotify.com prevents them from doing so without a payment. Some legal authorities have even suggested taking away the internet from those who consistently break the law and illegally download, but there is still a possibility that music piracy would exist sans the internet because before the revolution of the internet came, people used to burns CDs, record from the radio onto their cassette tapes. Is this any less of a threat? Arguably no if thousands resort to using this means if the internet privilege was taken away. A global superstar that is ’Prince’ showed the U.K. how to combat the terrors of piracy and that’s by giving your music away for FREE! A Prince album was put into the Sun tabloid and every reader received his music for free (cost of purchasing the newspaper at hand) and Prince made money back through endorsements and sold-out tour venues, arguably his walking advert allowed a greater market share to listen to his music and those who liked it bought a concert ticket that cost triple the CD album costs, probably starting at £50. Although Prince lost out on the sales of his album he may have generated profit through the more expensive concert tickets. Bargain really!
Roles in the Music Industry
What do these guys do? Roles in the Music Industry
There is a symbiotic relationship between the record label and audiences. The record labels are institutions that mould creative to fit what they think will sell to numerous audience members worldwide. The audiences are the ones who buy the media. Those with the most technical power are the audience, however the institutions exploit their power and constantly tell the audience that they need the product which is being sold. The institutions tend to provide the audience with an identical or similar artist as they know the type of artist has sold successfully in the past.
Manager- sorts out the dates of tours, daily promotional activity, and photo shoot, liaising with the record company and all of the different compartments of the record company on a daily basis. It is their responsibility to make their band is as successful as possible; this can be achieved by broadening the bands global proposition.
A&R- they must find and source the talent, working with song writers and act as a spokesperson for the artist. They need to make sure the talent is working with the correct people that will help make their work and image better.
Producer- they know what sounds and arrangements work best for the artist. They do not necessarily need to have experience, but they must know what arrangements works well to make music sound good.
Engineer- helps to build sound picture and makes musical ideas become reality. Producers and engineers work together to make particular sounds achieved and to help further the artist’s musical talents
Promoter- primarily responsible for putting people through the door pays for advertising, hiring the venue, the artwork promoting the music, booking programming and effectively choosing who will perform at a chosen venue. They will also sort out security, pay the band and make sure the bands stay is fitting with catered food.
Booking Agent- find source and book all shows, negotiate book and sorts out travel for the artist. An agent fundamentally looks after the artists live performance; negotiate deals for the act with each venue or promoter. They may work internationally in order to give the artist a wider audience. They will also find the timing of the show, positioning of festival bills, getting the right date for the shows. Work visas will be organised by the artist and agents to make sure the artist is legally allowed to perform in the country, contracts will be done under the supervision of agents.
Plugger- know the DJS and producers and they arrange for someone to be promoted, helps increase chances of getting played
Publisher- finds, source and exploits the talent. The sink team will pitch to TV and media, digital and film to make sure their artist music is played. The administrator publisher protects artist rights, make sure they get paid for; royalties rights, record sales, performance and synchronization.
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
We asked a group of 15-16 year olds the following questions; what do you like about the album covers and how could they be improved. We then showed them our individual sketches of the potential album cover we have designed for AbbieSinger and asked if they would be happy to buy our CD cover. The chosen covers relate to what we believe as a group through brainstorming and researching various Neo-Soul and Soul artists, AbbieSinger best markets within. These covers consist of Amy Winehouse, Sade, Alicia Keys and Adele’s album covers.
Soul artist album covers’ are typically personal and use close up shots of the artists’ faces to tell a deep story. Often as the Amy Winehouse, Alicia Keys and Adele’’s album covers show they have very little narration in the background but the emotions and intensity drawn on their faces tell a equally deep story . In contrast Sade’s album cover is very detail and does not use her facial expressions to put a story across, the power is held within her body positioning and countryside scenery. Personally I believe this cover is more powerful in bringing forward her soul genre as mystery lurks in the background and I prefer to make my AbbieSinger cover similar as I want my cover to have more depth and meaning through detail as oppose to simplicity. Although Simplicity works and it creates a more personal relationship between the artist and the consumer. Albums serve the purpose of delivering an extended musical experience to an individual there is a more intimate bond formed compared to the bond created through listening to music on the radio. Perhaps this is because the consumer has actively chosen to buy music from one artist that incorporates a portfolio of their music and only their music, but audience research has also shown that the bold fonts, the clear embracing faces and simple use of colour is what separates Soul cover’s from other genre’s covers. Marcus a 16year old boy said he would buy Alicia Key’s album over the rest because she is a credible artist and her beauty shines out from the cover. He also suggested that I could improve my album cover by using more colour and making it vibrant so that it competes with the likes of Rihanna’s ‘loud’ album and today’s market.
Digipak
Drafts CDs
In order to receive quick and relevant criticisms on my album sketches, I used a questionnaire to ask a sample of 15-18 year olds, unisex group at my secondary school. I choose to include those who weren’t necessarily my target audience to enable a wide range of responses. In general the respondents liked the playful character that I had created in AbbieSinger’s album cover as it set the cover apart from the typically intense soulful covers like:
They also felt that the use of a piano showed what type of artist AbbieSinger is straightaway and because her body is hidden by the instrument, AbbieSinger is not sexually objectified; this was an important question as I did not want my artist to gain success on the basis of her sexuality instead I felt it was important for the debut album to reflect my artist’s values and beliefs. The only criticism which my digipak received was the audiences questioning whether I could balance the bright colours with the classical genre that is neo-soul. They advised me not to overpower the monotone colours with the bright, flamboyant colours, either choose to make the album cover very colourful or keep it simple.
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Improvements required from Pavan Bansal: use a more professional font, add two colours to the writing, move the title 'AbbieSinger' from the right hand side to the left and make sure both titles are bold as it’s the first thing everyone sees. “The Awakening” page make the writing centred, using more of a professional font and use a wash-out picture in the background, perhaps guitar strings. The top two pictures make the background black and white with AbbieSinger shining in colour to make her stand out more and show a journey transformation from the past to the present.
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Front Cover: Abbiesinger is leaning on the Piano; I deliberately used a picture with her face and a piano to represent her love for music and her talent. As I’ve previously mentioned, AbbieSinger is a talented musician who is trained in both the Guitar and the Piano. She enjoys writing music as well as singing it and she is a dedicated rising star. I feel that my front cover has an animated quality that portrays my artist’s playful side as well as her passion for writing music and singing it.
Back cover: The use of a mask to hide AbbieSinger’s face juxtaposes nicely with the front cover, this symbolises her double personality. On the one hand, she is the typical neo-soul artist; she hits the high notes well and embodies, soul music with RnB undertones. But on the other hand she is a young, fresh neo-soul artist who brings her youthful soul to the genre. I enjoyed using Photoshop to edit this particular photo as I was allowed to play with the contrast of the blacks and whites as well as brightening the peacock feathers making it stand out.
Guitar Cover: this page would feature inside the Digipak, it shows AbbieSinger playing at a gig in the Jazz Cafe London, and this is what as an artist she enjoys most; playing to an enthusiastic crowd that appreciate neo-soul. Quoting my artist “my guitar is my best friend” AbbieSinger primarily enjoys assisting her vocals with her guitar as it balances out her soulful voice. As a result, I felt it was most appropriate to place her second love in her debut Digipak (almost like a diary to my artist) and the use of a black background and a colour foreground only highlights my artist and her passion more.
My Overall opinion: Considering all pages together as a finished product, I think it achieves my goal of promoting my artist as well as sharing her values and beliefs to the consumers. Fans of AbbieSinger are immediately aware of her passion for the piano and the guitar, as well as her feisty/ playful personality. All this is achieved through the visual images in her Digipak. Most importantly, we can see the various stages of thought processes and adjustments I had undergone in order to improve my first draft and this continue to go on for my music video and homepage.
Inspiration
This album cover is what AbbieSinger’s cover is most inspired by, the text is placed in the right hand corner and Rhianna’s eyes and lips are the main focus of the cover as it invites the consumer to explore her world, probing them to buy her album. I also like the ‘negative’ effect used as it makes the album cover stand out because it is something different and unusual. This has inspired me to incorporate an effect to boost AbbieSinger’s playful side and also make my piece more artistically engaging. The only difference is I would like my album cover to be colourful as the previous colour scheme shows.
The Colour Scheme
Here is a visual representation of how I envision my final album cover to look like. I want the cover to be vibrant and playful with a mixture of bright colours to catch the consumer’s eye ahead of other album covers. I also think it is very important to keep up with what is 'trendy' at the moment and with the likes of Rihanna and Lady Gaga the dominating force of mainstream music videos, it seems as though the brightest colours are more infectious as oppose to the typical safe colours such as warm whites and brown. Through the eyes of a consumer, album covers that are extravagant and stand out amongst the crowd in a HMV store are the ones with the brightest, engaging colours and shocking poses by the artist.
Album Cover Ideas
Possible effects to use:
The use of effects will vary on the finished Album cover; this is so that the final product has a polished and professional look with the aid of touch up on photoshop and other effects websites such as:
The Chosen Song
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| The Awakening: INSTRUMENTAL by AbbieSinger |
The Awakening is the title of AbbieSinger’s chosen first song, the music displays the range of her musical abilities as she plays both the guitar and piano in the song. The instrumental fails to show the Neo-Soul aspect of the song, this becomes evident once AbbieSinger's vocals appear on the finished product. There is a side toAbbieSinger's persona that blends with the piano and guitar; she can be soft and gentle like the piano and fiery and upbeat like the guitar, I hope to embody this persona in the music campaign. I want to show her daring, playful side through the use of bright colours. But at the same time I think it is important to capture the essence of Soul– music, therefore I will keep a hint of simplicity in the narration of the album cover. ‘Awakening’ is a word with several synonyms, the one that captures me most is ‘revival’ and this is the one I will keep in mind while structuring the album cover. I want AbbieSinger’s cover to capture the passion of Neo-Soul music but at the same time inject new, young life to the sub genre of soul. Her age and lack of maturity in comparison to the greats such a Jill Scott and India Arie will show through the chosen album cover but it will most definitely maintain a high level of professionalism that will make her album cover marketable and worthy to be brought by a consumer.
Who is our Star?
AbbieSinger
AbbieSinger is an 18year old Singer-Songwriter, she plays the piano and guitar and is best known for putting a Neo-Soul stamp on great songs such as Aretha Franklin’s ‘you make me feel’. A sixth form student at Seven Kings High School, she will go on to study a joint honours degree in ‘Music and Maths’ at the University of Edinburgh. Not only is she musically talented but academically she is also on par with the best to have done it achieving a perfect 4As at AS. AbbieSinger was our first choice artist who we hoped to represent for this project, not only is she good-looking, but as a group we also felt that her commitment to work, school and music was very strong that we had to work with the best in order to make a successful, CD cover, webpage and music video campaign. AbbieSinger is not like other typical Neo-Soul artist, clearly she has been influenced by the greats, but she also has a fun, wacky side that I hope to bring forward in this project, I want her to stand out amongst the crowd but at the same time to fit in well. Because she is a new– emerging artist it is important that her campaign has a significant impact on the Neo-Soul audience, so much so that it may bring people that do not know the genre to want to get to know it. Hopefully our teamwork will generate a credible artist that I know AbbieSinger to already be and the future consumers will learn to love.
Wednesday 23 February 2011
Neo-Soul Artists
Jill scott
India arie
Nina simone
Alicia keys
Mariah carey
Erykah badu
These are examples of numerous Neo-Soul artists in today's music industry. Some such as Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey are mainstream superstars while others (Erykah Badu) are more recognised in the underground scene.
What is Neo-Soul?
What is Neo– Soul Genre
> A sub-genre from 1970s R n B (rhythm and blues) soul with elements of Hip Hop
> It consists of deeper messages and meanings then simple R n B
> It is believed to have originated from Motown Records in the late 1990s
> To date, the Neo-Soul artists to make the largest impact on the mainstream have been Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys
> Many musicians in the genre dislike the term Neo-Soul and prefer to be called simply ‘Soul musicians’
> If you would like to find out more: http://randb.about.com/od/rb12/p/NeoSoul.htm
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