Media and Music

How Does The Media In The Music Industry Affect Individuals Taste In Music?

The ‘music industry’ is a broad term consisting of various elements such as composers, A&R, record companies, musicians, publishers, record labels and so on where all these departments together create, perform, promote and preserves music. It first appeared in Europe in the 18th century, when performers and composers wanted to market and promote there music and performances to the general public. The Music Industry has now appeared almost all over the world. The music industry has often faced many challenges; the way it is at present is very different than the way it existed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Recorded music only came into action in the late 1800s. Until that time, composers and musicians earned their incomes from performances, and later, from sheet music sales. The introduction of such technologies as the gramophone and record player meant that performances could be recorded and played again and again. The music publishing industry recognized that this provided an excellent way to promote sheet music. With the advent of radio (another new technology), music was able to spread. Then followed television where music videos where played which relayed short films meant to present a visual representation of a music song. It could be said that the record industry is dying, but the music industry is enhanced and livelier than ever, with so little boundaries. It is changing and growing due to file sharing over the Internet which now changes the balance between record companies, song writers and performing artists again with such peer-to-peer programs being used as Napster and LimeWire. Also being introduced to new music has never been easier with such websites as where the possibilities of listening to new and different music are endless. The music industry consists of many elements that bring it together, this essay will be looking at a small part of it, in which you could say that this is one of the elements that the industry does not have control of, such as what influences peoples taste in music from the media, in such areas as journalism, promotion of music, television and radio to come to a conclusion to how much impact media has on the music industry and why.

Music Advertising and How It Affects Lifestyles

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Music Advertising and How It Affects Lifestyles

Music is a very important component of everyday life. One can notice this influence on everyone’s movement and behaviour. Music can influence ones lifestyle from where they go out, who they go out with, how they dress, how they speak and even if they are likely to take drugs as they are now associated to certain genres of music such as dance. As people tend to get divided into categories on which genre they listen to, you can notice this sometimes from just how they appear. If there was a male wearing mostly the colour black and someone was asked to assess him, what comes to mind would possibly could be such thoughts as goth, the type of person to listen to heavy metal or rock, scary appearance and so on. The point being that today’s society now judge and categorize on how people dress as it can reflect what type of music they listen to and then what type of lifestyle they have. By living in a society which is dominated by the media we are constantly being reminded of the messages about music and a statement that it is one of the most effective ways of influencing the minds of young people. Rap is now being blamed for crimes and murders in cities over America and heavy metal is being blamed for giving teenagers dark images and thoughts in their heads. To what extent are the actions of teenagers a result of the type of music they listen to? Music does influence actions, especially in teenagers as they are more prone to advertising, it is just very difficult to measure the extent of the actions.

The Music Media and How It Affects Taste in Music

A certain question often reoccurs in the music industry; ‘Why are some songs more popular than others?’ Why is it so hard for experts to predict which songs would be hits? Researchers suggest that both questions have the same answer. People tend to like what they think other people like. The quality has also got something to do with it, but not as much as one would think. Sociologist Matthew Salganik and colleagues at Columbia University in New York decided to investigate this paradox by experimenting. They recruited 14,341 people, mainly teenagers to visit a website which was an artificial music market with 48 unknown songs by unknown bands. Applicants in one group were given only song titles and band names as their guide. Other applicants could also see how many times each song had already been downloaded. Participants could listen to songs, rate them, and then decide whether to download them. However participants who could see how often a song had been downloaded tended to give higher ratings to the songs that had been downloaded the most, and were then more likely to download those songs themselves. The researchers found that popular songs were then more popular and, unpopular songs less popular, in the groups where participants had access to other people’s opinions. Though the particular songs that became very popular were less predictable.

“In general, the ‘best’ songs never do very badly, and the ‘worst’ songs never do extremely well, but almost any other result is possible,”

(The Research Journal Science, , 10/03/07)

It could be argued that this research is only useful for deciphering the relationship between individual and group behavior. However this links in with music media and how they promote there music. As the research results show people tend to like what other people like. Music can be advertised in many ways, one where it expresses groups similar taste in music, for example being played or talked about on there favorite radio station, magazines, music channels, TV programs, and festivals. Also, in advertisement, to promote a specific album or music genre or even vice versa where the individual is introduced to the music via the advert played as background music, they may like the music just because it is an advert for the individual’s favorite car or sport. People tend to act like sheep and follow other peoples taste in music which originally comes from the advertising, it then has a snowball effect picking everyone else up on the way down.

Music Journalism and How It Affects Music Taste

Writing and performing music is one of the most personal and original things a person can do. Therefore, is it appropriate for another person to write an article criticising what the performer has put so much of themselves into? Music Journalism has been around for centuries and around the date of 1955 many memorable factors made it possible for music to be spread, popular and well known. One of these factors is the magazine coverage of rock ‘n’ roll, which started in 1952 where Jerry Walker changed the name of billboard’s race music chart to rhythm and blues. In 1953 Maurice Kinn the holder of NME magazine got a call from Musical & Accordion Express telling him that the paper had lost so much money they would need to find a new buyer. He kept the paper going and realized that there was a chart which they were not doing anything with. It had big names in it such as Frank Sanatra and Nat “King” Cole. At the time it was all about the scene of big-bands but that was starting to fade away, so he got hold of the chart and said: “These are the people we should be covering, and the chart should be the reason why people buy the paper” (Paul Gorman, 2001, pg 19)

Music magazines are informative, full of news and reviews of the music world. NME in particular has the tendency to hype up a band and then criticise them but this does not seem to make a difference to its fans and it has also recently won Music Magazine of the Year category at the 2006 awards. Fans of NME may follow there route and like who they like at the time however fans of particular music would not listen to reviews even if they where heavily criticising there taste in music. From a music show called ‘No Disco’ there was an interview with the late Jeff Buckley relating his views on music reviews, he said “Music is an art form. It is not spoken, it is not written, it is composed and it comes from somewhere unknown. For this reason, why should a person try to describe it using words?” Jeff Buckley (No Disco, , 02/03/07)

Conclusion

The music media has a huge impact on society especially teenagers, it comes at us through many sources such as radio, music channels, magazines, and so on. I believe music tastes should come from your own feelings, and not where it seems to come from today which is other people. Music seems to take a similar approach as fashion does to attract there audiences. Each season there is a fashion show to show shops, celebrities, designers and so on, what is going to be in fashion and what is not and from there the shops will sell what they were advised to and people buy what they have been told to. Advertising works in the same way as fashion shows, and decides what genre people will listen to and what they normally follow is what they have been advised to listen to. Although music reviews are the expression of an individuals opinion and it is there own right to do that, I do not believe music reviews serve a very important purpose. People are entitled to their own opinion but how can someone criticise something which is so important to whoever has made it just so everyone knows there opinion.

I do believe that advertising is important as it introduces people to new music without asking for it, as music is played virtually everywhere. However it can sometimes be rammed down society’s throats as what is and is not cool to listen to. Everyone in there own right should like and not like whoever they want and not be criticised for it. Overall the music media has many positive and negative points to it and it needs to find a balance as it is pushing their opinions onto others.

Bibliography

Author Unknown, No Disco Jeff Buckley Interview, URL:

, [02/03/07]

Gorman, Paul. In Their Own Write: Adventures in the Music Press, 2001, Sanctuary Publishing Ltd

Salganik, Matthew, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Duncan J. Watts, Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market, URL:

[10/03/07]

Salganik, Matthew and colleagues of Columbia, The Research Journal Science.

[10/03/07]