The Discourse Of Authenticity Within The Music Industry

Every music artist begins somewhere. Every artist had to do something to get their music out there. No one just automatically becomes famous. Then everyone wants to listen to your music. You start out new and anonymous and become more popular over time. Artist become famous by advertising. Every music artist should be able to advertise.

As consumers in today’s entertainment business, we don’t really think and evaluate about how a person or item captures our attention. Critics use media literacy to effectively evaluate how a celebrity can take hold of a consumer's time and energy. PartyNextDoor is one of many celebrities who manage to take some of the music business’ audience for himself. In order for a consumer to understand how he has done this, they must use the five tools of media literacy which is description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation, and engagement.

It is clear that the hip hop culture plays a huge role in the lives of many people. It has influenced the way people dress, the way they talk, and the way they act. Unfortunately, many big corporations have taken advantage of this and commercialized rap music in order to gain a profit (Blair, 497). Commercialization is a very complex topic; however, it is important to understand. This is because of the fact that when something becomes widely known, such a hip hop and rap have, it is vulnerable to change (Phillips, paragraph 9). An example of this is when author Nicole Phillips states, “Hip-hop became more about edge and less about the content of the message. It became about sales….” (Phillips, paragraph 9). Therefore, in order to prevent any further change, one needs to understand commercialization and how it works. This paper is going to explore the complexities and nuances of commercialization of the hip hop culture. In order to do this, this paper will consider what commercialization of hip hop culture entails. This paper will also discuss how Elizabeth Blair, author of “Commercialization of the Rap Music Subculture,” conceptualized commercialization, as well as how she discusses the situation in general. After discussing these topics, the paper will move on to discussing cultural appropriation. This discussion will include how authors describe cultural appropriation, and a debate regarding this topic.

I propose that all unsigned rising artist should target the business side of the music industry to be successful in the entertainment business because it allows the artist to be taken seriously and make solid connections that can further his/her career. Learning the works of the music industry also enables a new artist to be further successful and profitable. Recent studies show that most new artists without professional representation and a business mindset have a slimmer chance in getting signed to major or independent labels (Lowry, 2011). Overall, the specific change needed is that unsigned artists should be concentrating on their careers as professionals and not amateurs, thus focusing on the ins and outs of the music business and

The feel-good essence of a lot of commercial pop music has the outcome of concealing the reality of structural where a people may not be treated as equals around the world (McKay, 2000, p.2). Therefore, commercial pop music has the triple socialising effect of having listeners forget the environment that they live in, having them believe there is validity in commercial power, and of muting people by mass-producing blaring, fused type of pop music while censoring others. This is concerning since the increasing variety of media controlled by the same corporations. An argument to this is that this feel-good aspect can help consumers feel, that they have escaped the conditions they live in. (McKay, 2000,

The current music industry is a hard business for all musicians, whether they are a new artist or even a popular radio artist. Modern times have radically changed the way that musicians now make money. Past musicians used to be able to make a living simply by selling their music and playing a few major concerts to survive and even lives some luxurious lives and not really have to focus on anything except the art that they were creating. The music industry has transformed from being an art to becoming a challenging business job for anyone involved. Today, most musicians have to also be able to handle managerial business to get anywhere and make money or find someone to help them. Current musicians need to do more than just sell music

Popular music is often one of the best lenses we have through which to view our own cultural orientation. Many of the artistic and experimental shifts in popular music have mirrored changes in our own society. For instance, the emergence of Elvis Presley as a public figure would signal the start of a sexual revolution and the growth in visibility of a rebellious youth culture. Similarly, the folk and psychedelic music of the 1960s was closely entangled with the Civil Rights, anti-war and social protest movements. In this regard, we can view popular music as an artifact through which to better understand the time and place in which it is produced. In light of this, the state of popular music today may suggest troubling things about our society.

While many may argue that the rise of hip-hop is a major triumph, Questlove worries that by becoming so pervasive, the genre has, to a certain degree, become “invisible.” Instead of serving as “resistance to mainstream culture,” he believes hip-hop is now “part of the sullen dominant.” Questlove further laments that nowadays hip-hop is not as much a form of protest art; it has been marginalized, and its themes have been narrowed into ideas “mostly about [artists’] own victories and the victory of their genre.” Countless critics have made this same complaint—that hip-hop music is largely dedicated to lyrics about women, money, and fame.

The results of using the constructs of authenticity to evaluate music are therefore shown to be superfluous due to its foundations built upon opinions. Authenticity does not allow for a overall sound level of analysis as it relies upon a preconceived notion of what is authentic. These preconceived notions were more than likely criticised within their begins, thus leading to an endless evolution of authenticity. The quest for a composition to be utter authentic is an ongoing, impossible feat which will not be accomplished if the authenticity of music is based upon opinions. Therefore, Little Mix's cover of the Cameo song, Word Up demonstrates that ramifications that criticisms of authenticity. This is more clearly evident through analysing the

Kembrew McLeod (1999) proposes that an increased emphasis on blackness as a major point of hip hop authenticity – along with other characteristics like being “underground,” “from the street,” and “staying true to yourself” (1999, 139) – occurred in an effort to preserve hip-hop’s identity in the face of mainstream absorption (see also Decker 1994). Two significant aspects of McLeod’s contributions are (1) his acknowledgement of the broad nature of all authenticity claims – as opposed to arguing for an authoritative Truth about what hip-hop is, McLeod bases his research on how the genre is discussed by artists, fans, and the press; and (2) his binary framework which pits “Black realness” against “White fakeness.” Others have since used this

Authenticity has been connected to hip-hop since the genre’s inception in the late 1970s. Claims to authenticity are widespread to an unparalleled degree throughout all types of hip-hop music, from “gangsta”, lyrical, and party. Why is hip-hop preoccupied to such a large extent with the notion of authenticity? What qualities creates authentic hip-hop? Despite the previous absence of scholarly attention given to hip-hop, there has been a recent growth in hip-hop academia as the genre has solidated its position as a major market and cultural force within not only the United States, but also all over the world.

Less than a month ago, there was a case in which a famous singer was heavily criticized because of the lyrics of a song. The english artist Ed Sheeran launched his new album with a song called Barcelona, a city he has admitted enjoying going every time he has a chance. The lyrics became controversial in a few hours, since many people claimed they had nothing to do with the reality —it does show either how Barcelona looks like, nor how the citizens are. This anecdote did not last very much, but Ed’s message was bitterly misinterpreted.

Questioning the correlation of commercial success and true artistry began in the light of mainstream music. Mainstream music has been given a negative connotation due to the supposed lack of originality of the artists. Repetitive chord progressions and meaningless lyrics compose the majority of “mainstream music,” making each song sound like the next . Despite these patterns in music, artists still ventured outside of what was societally normal and created music that was unheard of. Despite the potential risks in being an individual in the music industry, several groups achieved high success and maintain the popularity in the present. Creativity and commercial success can definitely exist alongside one another, and this paper will prove that through the music of the Beatles, the performance styles of David Bowie, and the grunge movement in Seattle which was fueled by Nirvana.

The fact that replicating a seventeen-years-old song can still become a hit in 2017, demonstrates that there is a pre-designed pattern for popular music in which changing a few characteristics to make a new songs sound “unique” can still result in success. For this reason, Adorno argues that the music industry produces music in an “industrial” way--popular music is centralized in its pattern and modifies some characteristics to seem “individualistic.” Though Shape of You and No Scrubs contain different keys, tempo, and of course, lyrics, they both rely on a chord progression of i-ic-VI-VII in a common time (MusicNotes, 1 & FindSongTempo, 1). Shape of you takes advantage that the audience is accustomed to listening to the same pattern and it is modified to fit the current era and thus, result in a significant monetary income.

In the twenty-first century, we have an abundant variety of music genres, old and new. Music has a versatile role in modern society. Music serves just as many purposes as it possesses in genres. For listeners, music is not simply an escape or form of entertainment; it is a source of inspiration and self-expression. Sometimes, this can be problematic and lead to false identities and music miscegenation. The music industry has had a powerful influence on what listeners consume. In this process, traditional black music genres have crossed over to the mainstream. This has been problematic in that it gives listeners the sense that the music industry is fully integrated. In reality, the white dominated music industry and labels are still using