Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Monday 26 April 2010

Band websites

Anatomy of a band website
An online presence is vital for groups, but what – and how much – should a site reveal? Graeme Thomson talks to Ash, Stereophonics and others about their online artistry        
[excerpt:]
In the mid-noughties, Northern Irish power-poppers Ash were signed to a major label and had the website to prove it. "We had a fancy flash site that looked great," says singer/guitarist Tim Wheeler. "It was set up to launch an album, but there was no way of maintaining it or updating it regularly ourselves. It was frustrating because we had to go through webmasters. It was one of those sites you look at once and think, 'Oh, very good, but why am I here?'"
Anyone who has ever negotiated the official site of an arena-scale rock band or micro-managed pop star will recognise Wheeler's description: behind the digital dazzle lie meagre, bland, corporate-branded pickings offering very little incentive to return. That was just about acceptable when a website was simply a box to tick on the promotional round. Now, though, the web has become the frontline not only in the battle for sales, but also ideas. Artists across the board are having to sharpen up their acts.