Lady Gaga case study

Every day millions of telephone calls are made all over the world. In the 1980’s, a teenager would ask their parents for a telephone in their bedroom. Today, more of the American population has telephones than do not. It is a concept that we take for granted and probably always will. In prisons, you get one telephone call. Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” music video starring herself and Beyonc֢é Knowles takes an extreme take on prison life, sexuality, and the importance of that one telephone call. It debuted in 2010 as one of the most controversial music videos of all time and is compared to movies because of the way it was directed and it’s length [9:32 minutes].

The music industry is an oligopoly. Since the late 1800’s people like Thomas Edison have been buying up patents in communication technology, forming monopolies, leading to a non-competitive entertainment industry. With only a handful of corporations controlling all aspects of acquisition, distribution and marketing of music, harsh business principles create an exploitative industry that takes the best of what artists have to offer and leaves many of them unable to support themselves. Beginning in the 1950’s with payola and white cover music and ultimately evolving into iTunes and Spotify, the music industry has grown into a billion dollar industry with far-reaching influence and control. Contracts rarely serve the artists’ best interest and many are left out to dry when their usefulness has expired.

Glamorously gaudy, this self-made post-modern diva, Lady Gaga was the first true millennial superstar. She seems to be stitched together from elements of Madonna, David Bowie, and Freddie Mercury. Mastering the constant connection of the internet era like no other, Gaga has generated countless mini-sensations through her style, her videos, and her music; cultivating a devoted audience she dubbed her "Little Monsters." However it’s hard to understand the end when you don’t know the beginning, so that’s where we’ll start.

The first problem is the royalty fees made with labels. An artist’s album can cost anything from $15,000 to $200,000 (Recording Connection) and the artist is often left in debt after which is slowly paid back through the sales of their own records which only leaves them a fraction of what the original product was sold for. Another major problem with most major record labels is that their sole reason to get artists is to further their own profit. Most major labels put business before art,

It's been roughly fifteen years since People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, otherwise known as PETA, introduced an extremely controversial and graphic campaign entitled "Holocaust On Your Plate" in 2003. In essence, this project consists of multiple "60-square-foot visual displays of animals in slaughterhouses with scenes of Nazi concentration camps" (Hamilton, n.d.) in an attempt to provoke emotions so powerful that they would influence its audience members to discontinue the consumption of animal products. Of course, any person or organization that utilizes one of the most brutal acts of genocide in history as a metaphor to prove a point is going to be met with intense backlash, and this project is no exception. The vulgar imagery and religious dialect PETA chose to include in their campaign is being used to compare the "casual" slaughtering of animals for everyday human consumption to the atrocious mass murder of 6 million Jewish people back in the 1930s and 1940s.

The world market of record music in 1990s was dominated by only five big corporations: BMG Entertainment, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group. The majors could maintain their status thanks to patents and agreements, technological improvements and M&As. The majors had the complete control of patents and music rights from the artists. Even though the artists tried to directly contact to the customers, they could not afford the attempt. Thus, they relied on the professional signers and on the publishing company. The

4) Gaga’s launch as an artist up to 2009 was a success. Her talent and unique personality opened doors for her. Since it was hard to get new artist music on radio, Gaga began touring in small venues so as to gain popularity. She gained a huge fan base as well through optimizing social media cites and Gaga’s team organized some interviews with about 50 popular music bloggers. As a result the interviews reached

Completely changing to her identity to Lady Gaga, she began performing in clubs with a DJ named Lady Starlight, who helped come up with her onstage look, and act. They performed a show called “The Ultimate Pop Burlesque Show” and were invited to come play at 2007's Lollapalooza festival, where their show received nothing but high reviews.

The popular music industry in the late 1990s was dominated by a small number of integrated corporations with headquarters in Europe, the United States and Japan. This music market starts simply with an artist and moves along through many steps to the consumer. Everything has its start when a musician presents his music to a music manager, and if he/she finds the music promising, a contract is signed between the two, recordings are made and a marketing plan is drafted for the

The music industry is made of companies which produce and sell music. The music industry as we know it was solidified in the mid-twentieth century, where records succeeded sheet music as the primary product in the music business. Record companies were established, but did not last very long until the late 1980s when the “Big Six”, a group of multinational corporations consisting of Sony, MCA, WEA, Polygram, EMI, and BMG controlled most of the market. Initially there were five corporations (CBS and RCA (both now belonging to Sony), WEA, EMI, and Polygram) that had emerged in 1978 to own 60 per cent of the market. (Wallis and Malm, 1984, p. 81)

When speaking economically, the digital music sector of the international music industry is undoubtably the most important sector in the industry. Within the last decade, music has seen cardinal changes in the way both major and independent labels distribute their products. An industry that once relied on Payola 's and mass distribution of physical records and CD 's now relies heavily on the power of the internet. The first instance of mass distribution of music through the internet was by the service Ritmoteca.com in 1998 [1]. Ritmoteca had a library of over 300,000 songs, offering individual songs for 99 cents each and albums for $9.99. After signing distribution deals with many major music labels such as Warner

Introduction: Setting the trend for the future, the distribution and consumption of recorded music transformed dramatically with the launching of Apple’s iTunes in 2001. The proliferation of online music subscription services and other music sharing services exerted a great pressure on the conventional music distribution business model. Combined with this transformation, piracy of digital music had a profound impact on the whole industry. These worsening conditions in the market place for recorded music forced both established and upcoming new artists to experiment with new ways of selling their music.

The major music-only stores such as Tower Records (which once wielded considerable influence in the industry) went bankrupt, replaced by box stores (such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy). Recording artists began to rely primarily on live performances and merchandise for their income, which in turn made them more dependent on music promoters such as Live Nation (which dominates tour promotion and owns a large number of music venues.)[6] In order to benefit from all of an artist 's income streams, record companies began to rely on the "360 deal", a new business relationship pioneered by Robbie Williams and EMI in 2007.[7] At the other extreme, record companies also used simple manufacturing and distribution deals, which gives a higher percentage to the artist, but does not cover the expense of marketing and promotion. Many newer artists no longer see any kind of "record deal" as an integral part of their business plan at all. Inexpensive recording hardware and software made it possible to create high quality music in a bedroom and distribute it over the internet to a worldwide audience.[8] This, in turn, caused problems for recording studios, record producers and audio engineers: the Los Angeles Times reported that, by 2009, as many as half of the recording facilities in that city had failed.[9] Consumers benefited enormously from the ease with which music can be shared from computer to computer, whether over the internet or by the exchange of

From pop star sensation to fashion icon, Lady Gaga has influenced pop culture in many ways. After her 2008 hit single “Just Dance” the singer quickly gained fame for her unique techno pop music. From there on she has acquired a huge following and quickly took over the world of pop music. The singer then used the newly popular twitter website to tweet to her fans. She encouraged them to love themselves, spread positivity to one another, and most importantly funded her Born This Way Foundation in hopes of helping bullied victims. Not only did she use her music and social media account to influence her fans, she also made a broad fashion statement to motivate her fans to be weird, different, and unique. Many people still remember her famous meat dress she walked the red carpet in, while others reminisce on all the outrageous outfits she’s worn over the years. Over the last nine years, this pop star diva continues to top the charts with her music, spreading kindness, and walking the streets wearing memorable outfits.

Over the past decade, the use of CDs has been replaced with online streaming and retailing. This has eliminated much of the record companies revenues as they were used to making most of their profit off of distribution and promotion of physical copies of artists albums (Niemen). This has caused for a major shift and remodeling of major players in the music industries business models. Companies such Sony, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group have started to completely rethink the way they conduct business (Forbes). In the past record labels were not only responsible for production, distribution and promotion of an artist and his/her music, but they also acted as a bank (Forbes), funding the artists tours and recording sessions. Recently, these music giants have been moving towards becoming more of a modular network organization. What this means is that they are less occupied with the nitty gritty, and more focused on what they do best which is distribution and promotion. This also allows for more freedom of creativity for the artist as well as fairer split of profits (Forbes). This adaption of new business models clearly shows the versatility of the music industry in adapting to new times and technologies.