The Effect of Social Media and the Digital Age on New and Independent Musicians

Everything goes through social media, and thats were most people get their news, information, or anything they want to know. Social media has start up a lot of people careers, even if its music, fashion, photography, sports, and any business venture.

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

Social media is a technology that is utilized by almost every in not only America, but all over the world. It has changed the way we lead our lives, the way we communicate, and the way information is distributed. Additionally, this technology has had a prominent influence on individuals’ opinions and how they perceive the world around them. The presence and accessibility of social media has revolutionized many industries, and the music industry is no exception. Social media is reshaping the way we consume and interact with music has changed over the years as social media technologies have evolved. Furthermore, social media has gone on to changing the way music is produced and publicized. Music lovers are not the only ones to avidly depend on social media, but the dependence is present from the sides of music creators, producers, and marketers as well.

Social media is a big part of the music industry now. In the 1970’s they actually had to be in a studio to record any music, but now that has all changed such as SoundCloud and youtube have actually helped rappers to

There are at the least a couple of ends to every narrative and also the internets social networking market is not any particular event to this. Possibly a great way to quickly develop ones music's frequency is by decorating it along with seven people connected with drive seeing that improved sets of onlookers. There's really no dilemma obtaining to include this stability of this procedure plays for ones new music, you may influence the standard fame. Most of the handy if there is a single keep track of exclusively in which you believe benefits additional factor and also might commence additional popular passion in your potential like a craftsman.

The internet changed the way how people consume music. With the internet along came music streaming that opened new ways for upcoming artists and songwriters to share their music with the audience on YouTube and Spotify. Social media like Facebook, Bandcamp and Soundcloud made it possible to do it independently without signing deals with major record labels but the downside of it is that now every musician has that kind of an access so it is easy to vanish in that great ocean of new music.

Digital recording and digital distribution has affected the Recorded Music Industry in many different ways; it has created issues for major record labels and solutions for independent artists. Digital recording has made it harder for labels to stop piracy, and easier for independent artists and labels to distribute and create music. The evolution of digital music has created an apparent and drastic shift in the way consumers and producers view and use the music industry. The existence of these music files that have been digitally compressed, making them easily obtainable for a small fee or illegally downloaded for free, has made the music industry reevaluate how they are able to make a profit from their art form. “These new means of music distributing and marketing have not only pushed the music industry to new levels, but has created a whirlwind of changes as record labels are losing control, with artists and consumers having the upper hand”(Stafford).

Currently the band is sharing the same content across their social media platforms, which has a negative effect on following and engagement. Consider having the artist post more native content on each platform in order to drive followers and engagement.

A growing trend amongst new artists is crowd funding. This refers to audiences making contributions and/or micro investments in new creative ventures (Jenkins, 2013). For example, websites such as Kickstarter, GoFundMe and Indiegogo are platforms for independent artists to solicit and collect funds. The funds from these campaigns are used to finance record production, launch tours, create merchandise and all other costs artists need assistance with. These websites are helping change the path of becoming a recording artist. On the positive end, artists are having more control over the content they produce and are not reliant on large music labels for support. By using crowd-funding websites this eliminates the search for a record label and complying with the labels creative demands and time constraints. On the negative side, a recording contract guarantees all the costs and distribution to the labels networks to be covered so it is more challenging for the artist to build a fan base to support their funding efforts.

The music industry has been around for over two centuries (PBS). Its volatility can be measured by its ability to shift and change according to its time period, the technologies that arise through the ages and the public’s shift in musical taste. The music industry is comprised of many different components, organizations and individuals that operate within it. Some of these components include the artists who compose the music themselves, the producers that engineer the sounds created by the artists, the companies that handle distribution and promotion of the recorded music, the broadcasters of the music such as radio

Moreover, celebrities can now also keep in touch and communicate with their fans or other celebrities through social network sites. Social media is one of the biggest and fastest way for celebrities to widen their fan base, and it is also a way through which fans could "talk" with their favorite celebrities in a relatively safe, public environment such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (Social Media Today, "How Celebrities Use Social Media to Build Their Brand", June 2013). Social Media, basically, has made it possible for fans to strengthen their bonds with their favorite celebrities, and also made it possible for people to keep in touch with their favorite brands or business people, and to know what is new and upcoming.

The following proposal will be an overview of a short documentary project that will analyze and discuss how social media shapes musical identities. To do this I will use Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook to consider the interactions that happen through these mediums and also look into how this relationship can form musical identities. Thus, I will use interview subjects who I will film interviews with myself and I will also interview and use videos of fellow students on Mike Johnston’s online student page. I will use Jimmie Manning’s chapter in the book, Beyond New Media by Herbig, Herrmann, and Tyma to discuss the intricate nature of identity throughout this proposal to identify some of the areas of focus such as public music identity and social mediated music identity. I will also use things like Mcgee’s theory of fragmentation and Megan Foley’s sound bites to explain how subjects subsume their social mediated music identities.

When Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss founded SoundCloud in 2007, their idea may have not seemed very unique. However, their desire to create a simple music-sharing platform took advantage of a huge opportunity in the growing array of social network websites. By focusing on music sharing, these two young founders honed in on untapped potential, which has today become a very successful, and continually growing, company. Similar to the stories of other startups that have focused on specific markets, SoundCloud followed in the footsteps of twitter, facebook, flickr, and vimeo. Each specialized their website and therefore attracted specific groups of people looking for their services. SoundCloud is

The internet is an important tool for these singers to reach out to his or her fans. Websites such as Facebook and Twitter have been used as a way to do so. The internet has been used as a haven for illegal activities as well, one of them is piracy. When one mentions the internet, the first matter that comes to mind is piracy. The number of cases of online piracy has skyrocketed in the last few years. Websites such as The Pirate Bay and Mininova have been instrumental in this uprising of universal outcry for changes in copyright laws. Of all the types of media, books and music have been two of the most pirated. Full music albums are available to download for free on websites and eBooks have been pirated in large quantities. This movement of online piracy has influenced the population. Buying music is unheard of and ridiculed, while books are now downloaded more than they are bought in stores. This trend of electronic downloading instead of the old fashioned buying from a store has influenced our society immensely. Not only does it make books and music more affordable, it also makes it much more convenient for users, as they can gain access to full albums of music and books from the comfort of their homes. However, this trend of piracy also has its downside. Lesser known artists and authors whom need the sales from their books and music to make a living are now unable to because their works are publicly available for free on the internet.

The "business" of music has a deep and dense history, music itself began as a means of communicating emotions from pleasure to pain and everything in between, the "business" of music became a money making proposition. The average person may believe that an artist’s success is defined by hearing their music on the radio or when they perform to a big stadium audience. An artist’s measure of success, however, is more likely that moment at which they sign a record deal. Before the most recent technological advancements, a record deal was the single factor thought about as having the power to potentially skyrocket an unknown artist 's career into the next level. As a result of the digital age, record labels’ utilization has shifted. We (of this generation) are well aware that digital media also has the power to launch a career. For example, Adele was discovered on Myspace at 18 years old in 2008 and currently has the highest one-week sales of an album in music history (Lansky, 2016). If a "career" is launched because of social medial followers, the path to monetization usually starts with the very exciting step of an artist signing with a record label. This technological revolution has given birth to the second-generation record label called "indie" (independent) labels adding a new additional component to the previous and only option of the major label.