A2 Media Studies

MS4: Media – Text, Industry, Audience

Topic 3: The Music Industry

Exam Focus: Text, Industry and Audience

Text 1: Arctic Monkeys

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. Indie rock was extremely diverse, with subgenres that include indie pop, jangle pop, and lo-fi, among others. Originally used to describe record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock. As grunge and punk revival bands in the US, and then Britpop bands in the UK, broke into the mainstream in the 1990s, it came to be used to identify those acts that retained an outsider and underground perspective. In the 2000s, as a result of changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the Internet, a number of indie rock acts began to enjoy commercial success, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term.

In the mid-1980s, the term "indie" began to be used to describe the music produced on post-punk labels.[1] A number of prominent indie rock record labels were founded during the 1980s. During the 1990s, Grunge bands broke into the mainstream, and the term "alternative" lost its original counter-cultural meaning. The term "indie rock" became associated with the bands and genres that remained dedicated to their independent status.[2] By the end of the 1990s indie rock developed a number of subgenres and related styles. Following indie pop these included lo-fi, noise pop, emo, sadcore, post-rock, space rock and math rock.[2] In the 2000s, changes in the music industry and in music technology enabled a new wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream success.[3]

In the early 2000s, a new group of bands that played a stripped-down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock emerged into the mainstream. The commercial breakthrough from these scenes was led by

Intro and Background of Genre

four bands: The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives and The Vines. Emo also broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s.[4] By the end of the 2000s the proliferation of indie bands was being referred to as "indie landfill".[5] Indietronica took off in the new millennium as digital technology developed, with acts including Broadcast from the UK, Justice from France, Lali Puna from Germany and The Postal Service, Ratatat, and BOBBY from the USA.[6]

The Band

Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band formed in 2002 in High Green, a suburb of Sheffield.

The band consists of Alex Turner (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar), Jamie Cook (lead

guitar, rhythm guitar), Nick O'Malley (bass, backing vocals), and Matt Helders (drums, backing

vocals). Former band member Andy Nicholson (bass guitar, backing vocals) left the band in

2006 shortly after their debut album was released.

Arctic Monkeys were heralded as

one of the first bands to come to

public attention via the Internet

(through fan-based sites rather

than from the band), with

commentators suggesting they

represented the possibility of a

change in the way in which new

bands are promoted and

marketed.

The band's music is known to fall under the umbrella of indie rock although they have changed their style of rock on each album, which is one of the band's key features. Musically the band have expanded and altered their sound with each of their five albums making it difficult to pin a description to their style. Perhaps the key part of their sound and one that translates across their whole discography is lead singer and frontman Alex Turner's intricate and often rapidly delivered lyrics, sung in a distinctive strong Sheffield accent that their music

Genre and Representation

became famed for in their early years. Their early albums Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not and Favourite Worst Nightmare were rooted in garage rock and post-punk revival, with Turner's sharp lyrics the focal point. On the first album Alex Turner examined human behaviour in nightclubs and in the culture of the band's hometown, Sheffield. Turner describes "Dancing Shoes" as being about "people always looking to pull when they go out however much they mask it."[74]

These themes continued on the following album Favourite Worst Nightmare with the band still progressing as musicians. Songs such as "Fluorescent Adolescent" and "Do Me a Favour" explored failed relationships, nostalgia and growing old, while musically the band took up a more uptempo and aggressive sound.

Criticism of Indie Music

Indie music markets itself on being against hegemonic and repetitive structures, specifically pop

music and the establishment. However continued success has impacted on the group’s identity.

How far do Arctic Monkeys challenge hegemonic norms?

How far do Arctic Monkeys challenge hegemonic norms?

Representation Issues – Analyse these covers using media language

Whatever People Say I am, That’s What I’m not 2006

Favourite Worst Nightmare 2007

Humbug 2009

Suck it and See 2011

AM 2013

1. Do the album covers tell us anything about the genre of music? Explain

why and how.

2. Do the Arctic Monkeys follow a particular style or pattern throughout

their album covers? Why do they do this? Consider audiences.

3. How do these album covers target audiences?

4. How important are album covers to the sale of albums?

5. How has digital technology changed album covers?

Analysis of Music Video: When the sun goes down, Before the Lights Come on, Snap Out of It, Arabella

Conventions of the genre

Representations of age, race, gender and class.

Technical codes

Audience positioning

Britishness

Arctic Monkeys can be said, prior to 2013, to have a distinctive ‘British’ style. This can be

further narrowed down to being very ‘northern’.

How do Arctic Monkeys convey a

sense of ‘Britishness’? Has global

success changed this?

The internet: The biggest revolution in music since punk? 09/03/2006

The internet and MySpace provoked the biggest revolution in music since punk.

The internet’s impact and influence has now spread to the entire music industry. Not content with cornering the music sales market (iTunes recorded its one billionth download in February 2006) the internet has now provoked what Q magazine has described as the biggest revolution in music since punk, 30 years ago. Whereas punk, spearheaded by The Clash and the Sex Pistols, revolted against the establishment and the bloated self-indulgence of prog rock. The internet music revolution of 2006 goes straight to the very heart of the decades-old reliance on record companies to discover, launch and market new artists. So just what has caused the internet in 2006 to be compared to the days of safety pins fastened through noses, 12inch Mohawks, anarchy and anti-establishment anthems?

I’ll give you a clue… Very, very cold primates… The online-facilitated explosion of the Arctic Monkeys into the mainstream music business came as a surprise to many. Those with their ears to the broadband, however, who had seen the growing influence of community sites and the viral power of online might have predicted that the internet would one day propel a band fully formed into the big time.

The Sheffield based band gave their songs away for free by posting them on MySpace and the name Arctic Monkeys began to spread on chatrooms across the internet. Their fan base grew and grew and the times and dates of gigs posted online enabled the group’s followers to turn up ready to sing every word to every song. After the band’s demos began to sell in large quantities on Ebay they were finally picked up by a major label.

Jac Holzman of Cordless Records, the first purely online record label, talking to Q magazine, identifies the speed and ease of the internet as a reason why the Monkeys ascent was so swift: “Physical product has its place, but using the internet is a faster way of searching for and validating talent.”

Arctic Monkey Early Marketing, Industry and Success

And what an ascent it was. The Arctic Monkeys achieved two number 1 singles with their first two releases and have their names in the record books as having the fastest selling debut album of all time. Whatever You Say I Am was released in January and clocked up sales of 360,000 and outsold the rest of the top 20 albums combined in its first week.

It is the sheer volume of physical music sales that has been the most startling feature of the Arctic Monkeys story. With so many of their songs available for free on the internet, it might have been expected – particularly by those music business executives who believed the internet and piracy would be the death of the recording industry – that they would achieve lacklustre CD sales. But it would appear that the generosity of the group - allowing their content to be heard free of charge online, has been rewarded by their already fiercely loyal fan base.

Despite having made the most notable splash with their online escapades, the Arctic Monkeys were not the first band to use the internet to bypass record company involvement and market their music online. March’s Q magazine gives further examples of bands that have shifted phenomenal amounts of their music without the need for a distributor:

US band Hawthorne Heights sold 500,000 copies of their 2004 debut album The Silence In Black and White after using MySpace to promote themselves

MySpace helped My Chemical Romance’s 2004 album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge to over one million sales

Art-rockers from New York, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah sent demos and live tracks to blog sites Brooklynvegan.com and Stereogum, once the word was out, they sold 65,000 copies of their self produced album through their website.

The rise of community sites…

Despite not being a new phenomenon by any means, online community sites have rocketed in popularity over the last 12 months and now represent one of the fastest growing type of website. Nielsen NetRatings reported in February that 1.8bn community site pages are viewed every month, attracting over half the UK online population. Talking to Brand Republic, Alex Burmaster, internet analyst for Europe at Nielsen NetRatings has identified the growing importance and influence of community sites: “While most of the talk about the future of the web revolves around which of the giant media companies will win the battle to enable people to watch TV through the internet, a revolution of more immediate substance is already under way.” David Sinclair of influential music magazine, Word, wrote in a recent feature on the power of community sites on the music industry, that MySpace is now so important that its name is synonymous with social networking internet sites. “for the global community of musicians and music fans, it’s turning into a music version of Google.” Based on page views and user time, MySpace is behind only Yahoo! and MSN in the website ‘world rankings’. Just two years old, MySpace has 50 million registered users. It seems the $580million recently spent by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp on purchasing the site will prove money well spent. The success of the Arctic Monkeys’ serves as a terrific example of how the internet is being used to bypass the spin and marketing tactics of record companies and exemplifies the

empowerment of the consumer and their desire to locate something real. As co-creator of MySpace, Chris De Wolfe, talking to Word, points out, “MySpace is changing the band-to-fan dynamic.” His co-founder, Tom Anderson continues, “MySpace Music lets people find music in the same way they find out about music in person: through their friends.” The irony of the Arctic Monkeys achievements, when contrasted with the previous holders of the fastest selling debut album of all time, Hear’Say, will not have been lost on music industry big-wigs. Hear’Say represented the ultimate manufactured band, put together on a TV show and marketed with the exposure to average TV audiences of nearly 10 million for several weeks. The Arctic Monkeys outsold them thanks to positive word of mouth spreading throughout online community sites such as MySpace.com and the fact that they made their product available for all to hear for free. Also, you would expect the longevity of the Arctic Monkeys career to be greater than that of a manufactured band, having built up such a loyal fan base online. The internet’s relationship with the music industry can only grow. Online-only record companies such as Cordless Records will become commonplace and the internet’s ability to empower both the consumer and artist will ensure that it will be the chosen medium for seeking and breaking new talent. As a musical marketing medium the only thing that restricts its success is the talent of the acts. The Arctic Monkeys did not achieve their success thanks to the ‘magic’ of the internet alone. They are a band so of the time that, chances are, they would have been discovered eventually, but the internet just speeded the process up. The importance of MySpace and other similar sites like PureVolume.com for new bands is such that as David Sinclair of Word notes “No new act can now seriously expect to get started without it.” I think it is fair to predict that this musical revolution is set to last a lot longer than the last.

Read more at http://www.iabuk.net/news/music-and-myspace#mfWS0DQ7qIJ6xSR7.99

With the increased use of YouTube and vlogging, MySpace is no longer the force it once was.

How effective are other types of media platforms in marketing new acts?

Arctic Monkeys – Audience Interaction - Marketing music on the web Websites may not be able to break new bands, but they are the best way for labels to keep in touch with fans

Matt Keating

Trying to explain the success of Arctic Monkeys, some have pointed to the power of the

internet. The web, it is said, helped the Sheffield band to build up its fanbase.

Just look at the results: a second number one single and a debut album tipped to be the

fastest-selling in the UK for more than five years after it sold over 118,500 copies in its first

day. That Arctic Monkeys have the most popular band website in Britain (accounting for 1.9%

of market share in the week up to January 21) adds to the evidence.

But the band's record label disagrees.

"There's been a lot of hyperbole about this," says Jonny Bradshaw at Domino Records.

"People seem to forget that what the band did was burn their demo on CD-Rs, gave those out

at gigs and then the fans fileshared the hell out of them. There's been hardly any promotion.

It's all old-fashioned word of mouth."

According to Nielsen SoundScan International, Arctic Monkeys' single When the Sun Goes

Down was the most downloaded track in Europe in the week ending January 22. More than

50% of that market is in the UK, where over a million tracks are downloaded legally each

week.

While a band website has not been a valuable promotional tool in the case of Arctic

Monkeys, the same can not be said of Franz Ferdinand and the Kaiser Chiefs. Chris Hassell,

the founder of Ralph, the agency that handles the digital activity for both, says websites are

now central to marketing in the music industry.

"It's not that traditional forms of advertising are so expensive or aren't effective," he says.

"Websites allow bands to build relationships with fans that have never been seen before in

such a degree. Even unsigned bands can have a national or international fanbase."

The official websites of Franz Ferdinand and the Kaiser Chiefs each get between 10,000-

12,000 unique visitors a day. And although both bands are already successful, they take their

continuous online presence very seriously, offering regular live webchats and online video

diaries on their websites. In a Franz webchat this month, the band received around 20,000

questions in less than an hour.

"In terms of investment, it is not so much financial but time," says Hassell. "Bands,

particularly on smaller labels, are taking a more active online role and are stipulating in their

recording contract that they have control over how their website is run."

"But what a good website repays a band and a label, in knowing who their audience are and

where they are coming from, is incomparable in terms of any other marketing and research

channel," says Danny Van Emden, the head of new media at EMI Records.

"Fundamentally, websites are an artist's ongoing communication with the audience between

record releases and tours. The internet has fast-forwarded the importance of customer

relations in the music industry and allows use to be more reactive."

How important is the internet to the promotion of Arctic Monkeys?

Arctic Monkeys – Audience Theories

How do the Arctic Monkeys conform to Adorno’s Marxist concept?

Do other Bands/Artists conform to the idea of psuedu-individualism?

Adorno saw the culture industries’ use of technological reproduction as a way of controlling audience spending. He felt

the products they produced were standardised and pseudo-individualistic. For example Mariah Carey, Amy Winehouse,

Beyonce and Christina Aguilera each have their own unique selling point but are generically similar and also resemble other singers

of the past such a Diana Ross, Celine Dion and Billie Holiday.

Possible exam questions on The Music Industry

Pick one of the following questions using the Arctic Monkeys and the band

you used for a case study and answer one of the following questions.

A) Text

1. Explore the ways in which your chosen texts challenge or reinforce

typical representations of gender? [30]

2. How do your texts use genre conventions? [30]

B) Industry and Audience

1. Explore the impact of digital technologies on your selected industry. [30]

2. Explore the marketing strategies used by your selected industry. [30]

50 minutes – answers in books please