The launch of MTV in 1981 was a significant event in pop music’s development because MTV plays pop music videos to promote pop artists and bands. The ‘iPod’ revolution has been a significant event in pop music’s development because music has become easier to and cheaper to buy by downloading off of the Internet at approximately £1 per song.
It is important that pop stars promote themselves through pop videos because:
- It may describe the genre of the pop act (e.g. if you viewed a video by ‘Razorlight’ or ‘The Kooks’, you could tell that they are an indie-rock band because of their messy hair, slightly dirty clothes and, usually, acoustic guitars whereas if you viewed a video by ‘Girls Aloud or ‘Sugababes’, you can tell that they are pop acts by their ‘well-polished’ image and bright lights and colours used in their videos.)
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The video may broadcast a political point (e.g. in ‘Green Day’s’ video ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’, there is a political point broadcasted about the September 11th terrorism attacks and the current war on Iraq.)
- In the video, the star may be dancing or wearing a certain outfit to attract the opposite sex.
- Many people (especially teenagers) , like to rapidly change or ‘flick’ through music channels on the television. Whilst ‘flicking’ is in progress, the viewer may stumble across a song or a band/artist that they have never heard of and it may be suitable for their taste in music. This may lead to the viewer buying or downloading music by that particular band or artist.
The most important recording companies are Universal, Sony, EMI, BMG and Warner Brothers.
These companies reach their target audience by magazines, newspapers, radio, TV, tours and concerts. In most cases, a recording company will pay a large amount of money to a newspaper, a magazine, a TV channel or a radio station to print a story about the band/artist just before a song is released to promote it.
In pop music, there is an extremely large audience to satisfy. Luckily, there are many genres within pop music that would satisfy anyone in a music store or watching music videos. Older viewers/listeners generally prefer classical/opera music (e.g. Charlotte Church and ‘El Divo’) or music from when they were younger. Younger adults generally prefer music that is easy to listen to (e.g. ‘Keane’ and James Morrison). Teenagers generally prefer Hip Hop and Rap (e.g. ‘Beyonce’ and ’50 Cent’), heavy metal (e.g. Slipknot and System of a Down), emotional rock (e.g. ‘Taking Back Sunday’ and ‘Fall Out Boy’) and music that is hip and often in the charts. Younger Viewers/Listeners generally prefer younger pop bands (e.g. ‘McFly’ and ‘Girls Aloud’). Although these stereotypes are frequently made, occasionally teenagers and younger viewers/listeners prefer music that has come from an earlier time era or older viewers/listeners prefer more modern pop music.
Most pop music fits into a genre (e.g. ‘The Libertines’ are an indie-rock band and Britney Spears is a pop artist), although some bands have combined two different music categories (e.g. ‘Enter Shikari have used techno music in their heavy rock songs and ‘Busted’ have included guitars and drums into their younger pop songs.)
