week 11: Does the music industry create the market?

The first question that comes to mind is does the music industry control the consumer, or the consumers control the industry? As when a boy band comes out for example Boyzone and they go to number 1, the industry tends to set trends by bringing out other boy band groups like Westlife that sound similar to Boyzone. Theodor Adorno suggests that recordings generally sound the same. Which I disagree with personally, but with Boyzone and Westlife their music sounds alike. As a consumer your in control as you have the choice as to whether you want to buy a single or not, the music industry cannot force people to listen to music. On the other hand the industry can over publicise a song by putting it on TV regularly and playing it quite frequently on the radio, which can have a little effect on you. As technology is developing I feel that consumers have control of the music industry, as when an album is good from an artist the industry try and sell something similar to the last album, while the consumer expects something different, they can go and search for what they want.

week 10: NME Review

Through observing NME magazine, the adverts within the mag are about bands, Dvd’s, latest cameras, tours, events and competitions. These are obviously aimed more at males between the ages of 17-21.The music included is mainly indie, rock and pop which is not really my cup of tea. The main feature is about Coldplay and up and coming artist’s, and allows people to voice their views about what they think about current songs e.g. Kylie’ In my arms’. The adverts seem to take up the majority of space on a page, but throughout the mag there is an equal amount of written text and pictures. The language used ‘ It’s good to know that they can also expertly stick their tongue in their cheek’. Anyone can understand the language as they use some slang but not a great deal of it, the text was too small to read which at times can make me flip through the pages or put it to one side.

week 9: Are blackness and whiteness useful concepts in understanding popular music?

The definition of black from the dictionary ‘ is the darkest colour, with out light’ (Collins: 2000,p55) and white is defined as the ‘colour of snow, light in colour’ (Collins: 2000,p621). By looking at the definitions black and white can be looked at as binary oppositions, but is the colour of your skin complexion useful to understand music? As when you listen to music genres such as rap, pop, house, classical and rock you don’t tend to listen to them because of what complexion the artist is. For instance Eminem is of a white complexion and is a rapper, but he still attracts both black and white people. Duffy who also is a white artist sounds like a black gospel singer, but attracts both audiences. In the 1950’s era you could see that there was more of a distinction of music between black and white people by the segregation going on around that time period, but now you cant. In today's society white people listen to black music such as reggae and black people listen to white music such as classical music. When you listen to music at times it sounds like it’s a combination from both traditions such as blues and country music fused together emerged rock n roll, which can express cultural heritage. For example grime which is rap for the British artist. When we look at blackness and whiteness it makes me think about people that do not fit in to that category what do we classify them as e.g. Michael Jackson and Jennifer Lopez. Which shows that what complexion you are is not significant within music.