Music Industry Theory WorkDaniel Grimley

Is there an oligopoly of music producers an record labels who dominate the market?

• The top four record labels are; Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Independent Labels. Theses labels control around 88% of the record label industry, so there is a very strong oligopoly among these four companies and groups who all hold a great deal of money and power in the industry.

To what extent has music production been transformed by the internet?

• The internet has enabled a whole new way of importing and exporting music. On the web you can find so many sound effects and pieces of music which can be legally downloaded to a producers laptop and inserted into their tracks. This saves both time and money but it does degrade the meaning of the word ‘producer’ as it isn't music which they are producing. Also, on the internet you can have instrument simulations, such as; guitars, drums, keyboards and techno-sounds. This removes the need to have actual musicians to play music to be produced as it can all be computerized. However there are internet programs and software which do improve the production of real music. There are programmes now which have been developed vastly, enabling the mastering process of a track to sound cleaner and tighter. In addition, the export of music has become a lot easier. Production companies can now place their music straight onto the web from a laptop, which can then be bought online by consumers. This has been a huge leap, from the times when record players and tape decks were all the range, in terms of time, money and effort.

Are there any examples, within the music industry, that have remained untouched by the dawn of the internet?

• Advertising and promotion of music has changed since the dawn of the internet, however there are certain aspects which have remained untouched. For example, magazines such as Billboard and Kerrang! These magazines are still very popular amongst music listeners. The internet offers quick promotions of songs by showing music videos and being able to download the track, whereas magazines offer pages worth of information about the artist and their new songs. True music fans want to know about the backgrounds of the songs and artists they enjoy which is why magazines are still a key process of promotion and advertising.

• In addition to magazines, television music channels are also very popular, such as MTV. These channels offer all kinds of music from all kinds of eras. The reason they are still popular is due to the fact people like listening to music at home in the background or as a louder source for social events. Often people don’t have speakers loud enough so they use their television. However with technology continuing to advance, music channels may be reaching the end of their life cycle as soon louder speakers and music playing technology will be more affordable and will become a household item rather than a luxury.

What impact does the internet have on the audiences’ behaviour?

• It is extremely easy nowadays to illegally download music and albums straight to your phone for free from sites such as YouTube converter and Immerti. Due to this ease it makes the audience perceive this option of free downloads as an acceptable thing to do. However this kind of downloading is illegal, meaning in a way, the internet is encouraging people to break the law. Not only this but free downloads are taking vast amounts of money away from artists and institutions. An example of this is Taylor Swift’s dispute with the music streaming site ‘Spotify’. She didn’t want people listening to her music without getting any money for it, so she removed her entire music history from the site. Audiences who want to listen to music for free use this site but, because artists don’t get paid by the site, not all songs are on there. Unlike the website ‘YouTube’, which has almost every track imaginable and the artists get paid from YouTube dependent on the popularity of their video.

Should we be talking about the concept formally known as ‘audience’ with the age of the prosumer?

• Consumers listening to music via the internet are predominantly teenagers. Nowadays, younger people are becoming more versatile to using complex computer programs and software, meaning they are able to produce music from their own laptops in their bedrooms and for it to be just short of the quality of a studio produced track. Thousands of young consumers are producing their own music without the help of any organisation or record label. However these independent producers aren’t only producers, they listen to the music, consume it, learn from it and use sections to influence their own sound. Therefore making them a prosumer, in comparison to general audiences, as these younger prosumers are doing more than just listen. For example; I’m 18 years old and in a band, we write our own music and produce it in a bedroom on a laptop. We are influenced by similar bands and that is reflected in our music, but we also have our own sound which we produce ourselves, making us prosumers. Young artists are forever being born and are becoming increasingly better at producing their own music, challenging the idea of ‘audiences’ and also reducing business for recording studios.

What is the significance of media convergence at the levels of ownership, production and reception?

• Ownership – Conglomerates such as Sony and UMG use vertical integration to produce their own media. They have subsidiaries to produce the music, promote and market it, license it to other media forms such as film, distribute it and retail it. Therefore having complete control of the production.

• Production – The production and writing process of a song or album has previously been focused on what the writer wants the song(s) to sound like. However with media convergences, music producers might be asked to write a song to go with a new game trailer. This will then make the producer consider the tempo and genre of the song to go with the video and the game style. Two forms of media convergence are used here and it has a huge affect when it comes to producing certain types of music.

• Reception – Music used in multiple media forms and industries, such as gaming and film, will have a wider range and number of listeners. The audience using these other forms of media will be forced to listen and discover the converged track which they may find they love. Then the audience may advertise the song using word-of-mouth promotion and mention the film or game it is in, which will increase awareness of these other two media forms linked with the song.

What is the significance of media convergence at the levels of ownership, production and reception?

• Example 1 (Ownership) – UMG worked with ‘Girls Aloud’ to produce the soundtrack to St. Tinian's. The song was produced by Polydor Records (subsidiary of Universal Records) and the film was produced by Universal Studios. UMG had complete control and ownership over the film and the song.

• Example 2 (Production) – Songs such as Heathens (Twenty One Pilots) and Skyfall (Adele) have been written and produced with the sole purpose to be the perfect soundtrack for a certain movie (Suicide Squad and Skyfall in this case). When the writer of Heathens was writing and producing the song, they would have had to consider the genre which is portrayed in the lyrics, the minor key of the song and the slow tempo. All the features which can be signified to represent something negative will have been used to influence the production of this track.

• Example 3 (Reception) – Bastille’s song ‘Send Them Off’ has a music video to it, so film and music have been blended together to create a common type of media convergence. In addition this song is one of the songs on ‘Fifa 17’, so here we have music and gaming forming an alliance. This track alone has had a media convergence with both the film and gaming industries, meaning the track will reach a wider audience and gain more listeners. Meaning the artist will gain more popularity which will lead to more downloads, making them more money. Furthermore, songs accompanied by a music video help to tell the audience the message/story of the song, helping people to relate and connect to it. And those songs on games will help form a psychological association, when Fifa fans think of this song, they associate it with Fifa 17 and therefore associate it with something that they like and enjoy.