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

Thursday 23 February 2012

INDUSTRY/NEW MEDIA Indies challenge majors?

Indies hit an impressive 25% of market share in 2011:
independent labels – small companies not tied to the "big four" of Universal, Sony, Warner and EMI – had an unprecedented 25% share of the 113m albums sold in Britain in 2011. But industry observers say that what will perturb the majors more is the worldwide extent of Adele's breakthrough.
With EMI now effectively swallowed up, the big 4 is now 3; just THREE companies accounting for 75% of all music sold in one of the biggest music markets in the world.
The Guardian article notes the influence of digitisation here:
But Martin Mills of XL's parent company, Beggars Group, which also runs its sister label 4AD (whose Bon Iver is nominated for a Brit too), attributes the rise of indie to several factors. The most important is the internet having levelled the playing field. "You can be a little guy playing by little guys' rules, but that doesn't stop you from accessing the world market," said Mills. "Bigger players are in trouble, because online challenges [illegal downloading] have harmed their businesses more than they've harmed us."
Read the full article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/20/adele-brit-awards-indie-success

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