"The main aim of the recording industry is not to make music but to make money."

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Prudence March 10s

“The main aim of the recording industry is not to make music but to make money.”

In this essay I will be focusing on the ‘Pop’ genre to explore whether this quote is correct, and the recording industry’s main aim is to make money. I will be looking at advertising used to promote the artists, marketing techniques used and how much money is involved in contracts and deals etc for both the artist and the record company.

The pop industry is probably one of the biggest and most successful genres of all time. Pop music is aimed at teenagers, it is normally a very catchy chorus and a few verses, it can be described as “music of general appeal to teenagers; a bland watered-down version of rock'n'roll with more rhythm and harmony and an emphasis on romantic love,” many pop songs today are covers of old hits or songs with lots of samples from past hits, for example, Craig David’s recent hit ‘Rise and Fall’ contained the guitar riff from a 1993 hit from Sting, ‘Shape of my Heart’, as well as the riff it also contained a guest vocal from Sting himself, both of these factors increased the hype of this song and improved both of the artist’s careers. Most pop songs come with a pop video which is shown on channels such as ‘MTV’ and ‘The Box’ and television programmes such as ‘Top Of The Pops’ before the release date, programmes like this also give the artists a chance to perform. A pop video normally features the artist and/or actors acting out a story which may be connected to the song; other genres such as rock tend to have the band performing in front of an audience instead of the video having any underlying story.

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In the music industry many stereotypes are employed, for example, the rock genre’s connections with sex, drugs and wild antics. In pop many younger people are listening so this nature of labels is not really used, a good example of labels in pop are the girl band ‘The Spice Girls’, they founded the term ‘Girl Power’ and each had their own nicknames. There was ‘Sporty Spice’, ‘Scary Spice’, ‘Posh Spice’, ‘Baby Spice’ and ‘Ginger Spice’. Many pop stars are seen as sex symbols, for example, Rachel Stevens, a former ‘S-Club 7’ member had many sexual stereotypes aimed towards her, ...

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