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Can Manufactured Bands Ever Be Classified as 'Good' Art? the Effect O

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Can Manufactured Bands Ever be Classified as 'Good' Art? The Effect of the Market on the Construction of Music

Introduction Manufactured bands now make up a major percentage of chart music today, not least of them Take That, Boyzone, Bad Boys inc., East 17 and other all-boy pop bands. In this essay I would like to discuss how the standard of art has been lowered by the capitalistic system of the music industry, using a specific example - "Upside Down", which is maybe the latest addition to this genre of music. By this genre of music, I mean the all-boy bands which have been specifically manufactured and targeted at the 'teenybopper' age class (and also the gay market?).

Personal Opinions To argue that this form of art is 'bad' art, …show more content…

In this case young girls aged roughly between 11 and 16 have been targeted.
Having decided this, the next part of the process is, based on what the managers think the consumers want (or what they think they can tell them they want), to tailor make a product to suit the market. In this situation, the question is,
"What do girls aged between 11 and 16 want to see when they go to a concert?"
The answer is, having experienced the reaction to Take That, Boyzone etc., that they want young boys, in nice clothes, very good looking, very sexy looking, who are going to look great on their bedroom walls when they get their posters out of Smash Hits. So this is exactly what the managers design and produce for them.

The four boys that were eventually chosen were picked from the applicannot s who had responded to this advertisement:

"Are you between 17 and 21 and good looking? (We're only looking for the best!)"

"Do you want to be in a teenage all-boy band sensation?"

"Do you want to follow performers like Take that, East 17, Bad Boys inc. and Boyzone into the covers of Just 17 and Smash Hits?"

"Do you want to be part of a band selling millions of records?

From the seven thousand applicannot s, a shortlist of 250 was drawn up from their photographs alone. These 250 were auditioned in one day, each audition lasting about

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