HISTORY PRE-MTV VIDS

A post I'll add to over time if I remember. I have scattered a few archetypal vids across the blog, not sure if I used any tag though.

Read Austerlitz' superb history of music video for a fuller sense of how the form was established long before the 80s MTV boom that made it a routine part of promo and marketing efforts - or just watch the movie A Hard Day's Night to see The Beatles establishing the core of the media language still used over half a century later!

https://www.loudersound.com/news/watch-rare-pink-floyd-video-for-apples-and-oranges

Pop gender history in Vanity Fair videos

Vanity Fair (upmarket US men's magazine) has put together some useful montages of how male and female performers have evolved different looks over the decades...

The past century has seen a whole range of music icons, with distinct personas and styles, and, in this visual journey, as we did for female pop stars already, we take a look back at some of the most notable male artists from the past 100 years. We begin with Joe “King” Oliver, a preeminent 1910s jazz performer, and then work our way up through the likes of Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson, before reaching modern-day stars Kanye West and Justin Bieber.

MALE POP STARS


FEMALE POP STARS

...

PIRACY, AUDIENCE How Music Got Free by Stephen Witt

There are a lot of highly enjoyable reads on music and the music industry. Austerlitz's history of the music video is a must-read; Simon Reynolds' Retromania puts together a strong argument on the changing nature of the audience for music, and Ralph Negus has done a fantastic overview of academic theory around music and audiences.

Whichever artist you're working on, you will be able to find books on them, their influences, their genre which help throw up ideas. As a result of so frequently name-checking Madonna when discussing Lady Gaga through the 2015 A2 Bad Romance production, I tracked down the hefty bio on her, a great read, and reinforcing the view that the likes of Gaga 'borrow' hugely from the Madonna playbook.

Witt's book, just out, I haven't read yet, but covers the span of two decades in which a bloated music industry exploited digital technology to charge fans to re-purchase music many already owned on vinyl or cassette. This hubris would come back to bite them as digital piracy took off, an early indicator that the traditional passive producer-audience relationship was unstable and set for disruption under what would become web 2.0...

Article/infographic link below the line

INDUSTRY How far have revenues fallen?

The article below details the financial struggles of a range of bands - acts with sizeable followings, radio airplay and critical acclaim. At their level, touring and merchandise still aren't really paying the bills, with minimal money coming in from actual record sales.

They note that even the fees for their music being used in ads has steeply declined. The flipside is the potential of digitisation to slash costs and directly engage with (and monetise) an audience.

Just how far have revenues fallen then? The actual figures are quite shocking - from a global $40bn industry to just $14bn in 15 years as digital piracy took off from 1999.

The music industry has been in steady decline since the early 2000s as illegal downloads and then the rise of streaming took gargantuan chunks out of record sales. The situation is not improving, with global revenue for music dipping below $14bn for the first time in 2014. It was $40bn in 1998. 

Understandably this hits artists not shored up by the big labels the hardest. Nothing in music pays what it once did, and the decline will likely continue.

We’re in an industry where over 90% of releases never recoup the money spent on them,” he says. “The industry underwrites failure as a necessary part of its operation and looks to the supercharged successes of a very small number of artists to cover the losses. That’s pretty dysfunctional. The number one challenge facing a new artist is a financial one: become profitable or cease to exist in the medium to long term.”

Wale believes that by thinking on a more realistic scale, and with advances in technology, it is still possible to make an income from music. “I think now, more so than ever, it’s very possible – especially for a solo artist – to make a cottage-industry scale success without any outside help whatsoever. Obviously this has been facilitated greatly by the internet and the emergence of online networks, fan-supported releases and a number of great discovery platforms. All the tools are really there for someone to go out and do it themselves.”

ARTICLE: The long, hard road to rock’n’roll success: ‘We’re essentially skint’

SOCIAL MEDIA MySpace and other failed sites

It is axiomatic that a social media presence is vital for any artist, aspiring or established. The perceived impact of Gaga's Little Monsters or Justin's Beliebers, not to mention any number of supposed bedroom success stories, reinforces this.

The fakery of most bedroom successes, their apparent viral success actually fuelled by major record labels' spending, and the pronouncement by the ever tedious Ed Sheeran that he's taking a break from social media to focus on his ... 'art', indicate a flipside to the argument that web 2.0 sites offer a key opportunity and disruption of the established distribution and marketing route through record labels.

Keen has also established an academic narrative against the intrusive, exploitative nature of these data-mining sites who profit from selling user data.

The articles below (with some strong language) are a useful reminder of the volatility of social media, with dominant sites completely disappearing once they lose their fashionability or zeitgeisty status.

See Ello, is anybody there? Alternative social networks abound for the peachy-keen

RIP Friends Reunited – but what else is lurking in the social media graveyard?

INDUSTRY WEB 2.0 Conglomerates sued over fees for 'broken' downloads

Great illustration over the downsides of web 2.0 and how the likes of John McMuria may be right in arguing that the brave digital new world is simply a slightly reconstituted lineup of giant conglomerates, not the newly democratic, level playing field technotopians see it as.

Universal is in the frame here, but their practices are fairly standard for the record industry.

Article link below the line.

INDIE RETRO Before blogs there were zines...

Great, in-depth interview with Bruce 'Sub Pop' Pavitt (that's where Nirvana started if you don't know the name).

Simon Reynolds' writing, notably the book Retromania, is a good way of getting a handle on how the music industry and fandom was, back in the day; this interview is a great starter for any such wider reading.

The appeal of retro media and technology, from zines to vinyl, and that ridiculous music movement that insists on using only primitive 80s sequencers, is a marked feature of our postmodern, mashed-up era of pastiche and bricolage. Digitisation has ironically boosted the appeal of analogue technology, at least once it has almost entirely obliterated it from mainstream retailing and usage.

SOURCE: Diffuser.fm.

Vids covered in Lesson One (Tues June 12th)

A NEW ERA? THE MIND BUGGLES...
DISCUSSION POINTS

1. WHAT MAKES THIS VID HISTORIC?
2. TO YOUR EYES IS IT A TYPICAL VID? (WHY?! employ M.Lang as standard...)
3. DID 'video kill the radio star'? [theory link: Bijker et al 1987] What saved radio (and has four wheels...)? Do YOU listen to digital or web-streamed radio? Radio podcasts?
4. How relevant/influential is MTV today? Where do YOU access MVids from ... and what terms/concepts from AS study of British cinema does this remind you of? [con.../dig...]

I'M THRILLED TO BE DOING MUSIC VIDEO!

MUSIC VID HAS MUCH IN COMMON WITH FILM ... INDEED, SOME MUSIC VIDS ARE SHORT FILMS
Jackson had been greatly impressed by director John Landis' groundbreaking SFX in the Indie hit An American Werewolf in London, and hired him to transform the pop superstar into a grotesque zombie for this classic vid (a rather tragic irony given his later history).
Music video is a highly postmodern format, liberally borrowing not just from existing videos, but across all forms of media and wider culture - a video maker has much more creative freedom than a film maker, is less bound by (NOT entirely free from) genre expectations.

(QUICK DISCUSSION1) ET TU BRUTUS? WHAT'S YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THE A2 INVOLVES?

DIGITISATION 'The Face Book'

Great video here (tho' maybe thats my Retromania talking?!)- not sure if you'll follow the full preferred reading as the technology it mimics goes back as far as 1996, but the basis of the satire is clear enough
Raises some nice points about the limits to/dangers of digitisation and new media (and, indirectly, about the speedy obsolescence that befalls many once giant new media/technology names):

Biggest Brit in US in 2011?

Intriguing top 40 list of top-earning music artists in US last year, which highlights the importance of concert/touring/merchandise revenues over music sales, and the prominence of many older acts (Backstreet Boys and New Kids on the Block?!?!).
Great to see a genuine talent being the highest ranking Brit entry (ie, not Adele...), though there was of course an even higher-ranked Irish act!
Read more here. Useful data for many of you.

FEMINISM/Annie Lennox

I've briefly posted on AL before; her 80s vids for Eurythmics caused a national outcry when she played with gender expectations by dressing as a man (theory ref: Judith Butler - gender as performativity; also Chomsky's propaganda model as the 'flak' she received was designed to filter such counter-hegemonic thinking out of mainstream media and therefore public consciousness)

Fascinating article here (from the Guardian) in which she discusses this past and her efforts today to use music for feminist ends, including launching a new pressure group

AUD Rock's for 40+ folk?!

With key 60s icons still singing their songs of youth and youthful rebellion but hitting their 70s, and even punk icons like the Pistols' Johnny Rotten at 56 (and a band Paul McCartney picks out as representing today's kids, the Foo Fighters, having an average age of 43.6), John Harris puts forward the argument on the Guardian Music blog that rock is for the over-40's! He backs this up by pointing to the now quarter-century growing dominance of hip-hop and associated forms; none of the current top 40 singles are rock. He also writes of switching from NME to Mojo for his rock news, the latter now overtaking Q (itself centred on a mature, sophisticated audience) as the UK's biggest selling music mag.

What do you think? Is rock music no longer 'for the kids'?!

Read the full article here; and see links list on nostalgia in music, plus various posts (THEORY TIP: see Simon Reynolds' book...)

HISTORY: MTVs 1st day playlist

With thanks to Rob Shaw for suggesting this, here's the video playlist from MTV's very 1st day: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL12813D74635E9DA0

GENRE: history/future of Indie record labels

Even if they misspelt the title, a good in-depth article here: http://louderthanwar.com/blogs/the-history-and-the-future-of-independant-record-labels

US INDUSTRY DATA

A useful snapshot of how digitisation is transforming the music industry, including breakdowns by genre: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Nielsen-Company-Billboard-bw-3137090198.html

CONTROVERSY: 10 Most Rebellious TV Rock Performances

SEE ALSO http://musividz.blogspot.com/2011/10/anti-vid-jesus-mary-chain.html

The appeal of the music vid for TV partly lies in the ease with which it can be controlled by the TV producers: it can be bleeped or cut at will, for example. Live performances can, by contrast, be anarchic, from Elvis' 'shocking' pelvis gyrations in the 50s, through The Doors' Light My Fire reference to 'girl we can't get no higher' to Nirvana's debut UK performance where singer Cobain shouted on The Word that his girlfriend was the best, ahem, sexual partner in the world.
You can see a list of 10 egs of (rock) bands not following the rules on a variety of TV shows, including YouTube clips of the performances, at http://loudwire.com/most-rebellious-tv-rock-performances/

I've embedded just one example below: Johnny Rotten refusing to lipsynch on US TV:

Genres timeline from Gdn

see http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/interactive/2011/jun/11/history-modern-music-timeline

Guardian Music 100

A rather odd list this - ostensibly the 100 people who most influence what we listen to. One problem with such a list is the unconscious focus on 'pop' music, which much of the population aged mid-20s and upwards largely ignores. Another glaring omission I've seen noted elsewhere is that of the BitTorrent search engine Pirate Bay! See what you think: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/interactive/2011/may/26/guardian-music-power-100-interactive

Most-played tracks last year? ...

Lady Gaga rules airwaves as UK's most played artist

Bad Romance tops year's airplay list, with Alejandro at two and Alicia Keys' Empire State of Mind at three 

Mark Sweney

• The Guardian, Monday 6 June 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jun/06/lady-gaga-uk-most-played

Lady Gaga's Bad Romance was the most-played single on UK radio in 2010

y the most played artist on UK radio last year. Bad Romance, the first single from her album The Fame Monster, topped the annual airplay chart compiled by music licensing company PPL.
Lady Gaga, famous for her controversial outfits and flamboyant concert performances, also had the No 3 most played record with Alejandro, another single from the same album. The runner-up spot was taken by Alicia Keys's Empire State of Mind.
The previous year's chart was topped by Lily Allen, who has since retired from the music business citing the pressures of fame. Such a thought is unlikely to trouble Lady Gaga – known as "mother monster" to her fans (who are the "little monsters") – any time soon.
PPL, which collects airplay royalties on behalf of artists and their record companies, generated a record £143.5m last year, up 11% on 2009. Its top 10 chart also includes songs played in bars and restaurants.
"These results are very encouraging especially against the backdrop of very difficult trading conditions for us as well as many of our licensees and the customers," said Fran Nevrkla, the former professional violinist who heads PPL.
The strong performance of PPL – labels and musicians received a record £124m after various costs were deducted – was a ray of light for an embattled music industry.
Global sales of CDs fell by almost $1.5bn last year as digital piracy continued to take its toll.
And last month it emerged that the decade-long rise of live music in the UK, long billed as a saviour of the industry, had run out of steam, with revenues dropping 6.7% in 2010, according to figures from rights body PRS for Music.
In contrast PPL had a solid year, with the biggest growth coming from international revenues, which grew by nearly half to £32m.
PPL is targeting royalties from the US, the world's largest music market, which although lucrative could be massive if the American system of not allowing royalty collection from analogue radio stations is eventually changed.
There was 2% growth in public performance revenue, which broke the £50m mark to account for 35% of all revenues, given the continued decline in the number of pubs and nightclubs in the UK.
The PPL managed to significantly increase its membership last year, with a 13% boost in the number of performers signed up to 47,500 and a 26% rise in record company members to 6,300.

Top 10 most played songs in 2010

1. Lady Gaga Bad Romance
2. Alicia Keys Empire State of Mind
3. Lady Gaga Alejandro
4. Plan B She Said
5. Kylie Minogue All the Lovers
6. Olly Murs Please Don't Let Me Go
7. Ke$ha Tik Tok
8. Florence and the Machine Rabbit Heart
9. Train Hey, Soul Sister
10. Kings of Leon Sex on Fire

MP3 killed the album?

An extract from Pitchfork.com's rundown of the top 100 albums of the 1990s; are they right to say the album is dead ... do YOU still get/listen to whole albums, or listen to single tracks outwith the context of the album they were released in?

001: Radiohead
OK Computer
[Capitol; 1997]

The end of the 90s will be seen as the end of the album. The rise of MP3 technology and file downloading returned pop music consumption to collective pre-Beatles mindset, where songs are judged as singles. Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac were shallowly criticized as B-side collections because they were downloaded and assembled as such on home computers. "Treefingers" and "Hunting Bears" were torn apart, not a piece of a 60 minute or so record, but as worthwhile 34-minute download times (this, remember, was right before DSL/Cable). The resurgence, and arguable final entrenchment, of manufactured Pop Stars by their handlers over supposedly more artistic fare-- and more importantly the acceptance of such common pleasures by critics-- razed the significance of the complete album. Which is why OK Computer , and it's Best Albums Ever companion Loveless , eternally top these polls: somehow we doubt we'll ever see their like again.