Someone Like You: The Manipulation Of The Music Industry

Furthermore, various songs are specifically written with certain intentions and nuances to express the artist’s values and beliefs about a topic such as, love or the natural phenomena. Based on the passage, “ Source 2: Selling Out Not Worth the Risk”, it states “ But when outside interests enter the mix, they can replace the passion in an artist’s music and turn the art into just another tool for corporations.” To emphasize, businesses have the power to change any lyric in the song, so the song would lose it’s meaning and instead be about the product the business is selling. Even though, allowing corporations use an artist’s song for advertising a product, enables the artist’s song to be heard from an even more

Has it ever occurred to you that this generation tries to search for the next best thing? Is it like a business man try to look for the next best thing that everyone is buying? I mean if other people do it and there perfectly fine doing it we assume that we could do it and we think we will be just fine as well. Take those examples and try to use it with music. Do you think that what we listen to can affect us in any way or not? Maybe and maybe not, but some of us tend to get influenced by what they put into their heads. Not everything that we see or do can import negative thought or feelings, but listening is a part of that category as well. Therefore, what these artists are trying to do is trying to use a rhetorical device to tell us that

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.

Millions of people in the world listen to music for all different reasons. Most people all over the world listen to different genres of music in order to relax, but not too many people pay attention to the actual lyrics of a song. If you listen to the lyrics of a song you will realize that many songs have important messages or themes to them. An example of this is the lyrics of the song “Changes” by Tupac Shakur. If you listen to this song, you will realize that Tupac raps about not only the problems that African Americans face from society, but also the struggles that poor people in society have to endure and overcome. Many

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,

Music is the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity.Music provides a powerful form of expression that at its most basic level helps to entertain while containing the power to cause revolutions. It is a way for people to express themselves through beats, lyrics, pitches and ranges. Imagine owning a music store, and a new album about police brutality is brought to your store for you to sell. An undercover cop came in and bought the album, and told you that if you didn’t take the albums off the shelves you would be arrested and your store would be shut down. There are debates today on whether the government should censor the music that we listen to.Some believe it has a negative effect on the listeners and cause them to become the lyrics. Since music is a form of expression, censoring the music would be a violation of our rights.

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)

Music has played a vital role in human culture and evidence based on archaeological sites can date it back to prehistoric times. It can be traced through almost all civilizations in one form or another. As time has progressed so has the music and the influences it has on people. Music is an important part of popular culture throughout the world, but it is especially popular in the United States. The music industry here is, and has been, a multi-million dollar business that continues to play an important role in American popular culture. This is also a art form and business that is forever changing as the times and more importantly, technology changes. Technology has changed the way music is made as well as how it is produced,

Most popular music today is driven by violence and sex. These musicians put out albums that glorify violence and promote causal sex. When the albums are being produced, the artist does not think of how it will affect the perspective merchant. When

     Many people believe that music should be filtered because it provokes violence or sex within society. There may be some truth in this but for the most part it is merely myth. People who have any common sense or are not legally insane can understand fact from fiction and what not to imitate. Anyone who listens to Eminem and decides to go and kill their wife should have been locked up long before the actual crime. When people do things that resemble what an artist says in a song, it is usually by pure coincidence and all are negative incidents. Frank Zappa was quoted to have said “I wrote a song about dental floss but did anyone’s teeth get cleaner?”(Jackson 1).

When creating music, there must be something that appeals to the audience. Music in this age must now be more original than ever. New genres of music are being born at a rapid pace, which makes being original a difficult task. “Re-Tuning the Music Industry—Can They Re-Attain Business Resonance?” by Sudip Bhattacharjee, et al, writers for Communication of the ACM, makes the following statement: “Each song is unique. Artists strive to be distinctive and constantly adapt and innovate their offering. Consequently, music consumers face non-trivial search and evaluation tasks prior to each music purchase.” (Bhattacharjee 136). The willingness for consumers to buy music, whether it is an album or just one single song, increases when the music is something they have never heard of before. A band such as Nirvana was able to do just that. In the

Songs such as “John” by Lil Wayne and Rick Ross, and “Crack” by 2 Chainz influence behaviors such as shooting people and selling drugs. “John” talks about how they have an AK-47 in their trunk and Lil Wayne says load it up and “hit them where it hurt.” Later in the song Lil Wayne says, “You know the rule, kill them all and keep moving.” This means just shoot and act like nothing happened. In 2 Chainz’s song he talks about how he is standing on the corners selling crack, cooking it in his kitchen, and has over one thousand grams of it on him. The future generations of America are listening to this stuff, and it is corrupting their minds.

In this article, Peterson and Berger show how the organization of the popular music industry affects the music that America hears.

The evolution of the music industry follows the familiar pattern of digitization. Innovation began with the introduction of the vinyl record, transitioned from the cassette tape to the compact disc and landed us in an era of digital downloads. The emergence of music streaming services like Spotify has progressed the industry even further, giving consumers the ability to access music on demand using download-free online platforms. Spotify faces criticism from artists as a result of the overlap of creativity and commerce. They argue that business activities corrupt creativity, transforming it into a tool for profitability rather than an outlet for expression. Artists insist that Spotify deters album sales, favors established artists and fails to support them financially. However, Spotify was created for consumers. It delivers an accessible alternative to purchasing and downloading music. The interplay between creativity and commerce is changing the nature of the music industry. Spotify has adapted to this change, providing a platform that supports both artists and consumers. Through analysis of the market, artist’s revenue, record labels and consumers, I will argue that artists should accept the evolution of the industry and support Spotify.

Both MTV (Music Television) and BET (Black Entertainment Television) do not just play music videos. They also have interviews with musicians. This is another way for a musician to be recognized. Even if the audience doesn’t even hear a song from the musician being interviewed, they have still been introduced to the musician and the next time they are out buying CDs they may come across a CD from that musician and want to try it out. Shows dedicated to music also usually have a top ten countdown. To make it to the top ten countdown, the musician already has a lot of people listening to their music, but can still gain a lot more listeners. Just because it’s on the top ten doesn’t mean everyone has heard it, so if someone watching sees the video for the first time the musician may have gained another listener to buy the album.