Tuesday 25 September 2012

Major And Independent Record Labels

There are two types of record labels when it comes to the music industry they are known as, independent and major record labels. The traditional definition of a major record label is one that owns its own distribution channel. Some independent record labels, in particular those with successful performing artists, sign dual release agreements and make other deals with major record companies and may rely to some extent on international  licensing deals, distribution agreements and other arrangements with major record labels. Major record labels may also partially acquire independent record labels.

Other independent record labels are started and sometimes run by major record label artists but are still owned at least in part by the major label parent. These spin off labels are also frequently referred to as vanity labels or boutique labels and are intended to appease established, powerful artists and/or to give them latitude in discovering and promoting new talent.

According to Association of Independent Music (AIM). A major record label is defined as a multinational company which together with the companies in its group has more than 5% of the world markets for the sale or records and/or music videos. The majors are currently Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and EMI. If a Major owns 50% or more of the total shares in your company, you would usually be owned or controlled by that major record label.
Sony BMG's subsidiary companies are Arista Records, Columbia Records, Epic Records, J Records, Mchenry Records, Jive Records, RCA Victor Records, RCA Records, Legacy Recordings, Sonic Wave America.






Warner Music Group's subsidiary companies are Warner Bros. Records, Asylum Records, Rap-A-Lot Records, Smoke-A-Lot Records, 143 Records, Blacksmith Records, Maverick, No Limit Forever Records, Nonesuch Records, Reprise Records, RuffNation Records, Sire Records, Maybach Music Group and Jet Life Recordings.






Universal Music Groups subsidiary companies are Universal Music Publishing Group, Universal Music Group, Distribution, Interscope-Geffen-A & M, Geffen Records, The Island Def Jam Music Group, Universal Republic Records, Universal Music Group Nashville, Verve Music Group, Decca Label Group, Universal Music Latin, Entertainment, Universal Music Enterprises, Show Dog-Universal Music, V2/Co-operative Music, Polydor Records, Mercury Music Group, Island Records Group, Universal Music TV, London Records.

Stolen Recordings
One of the smallest and lesser known labels, Stolen Recordings have a true home made feeling, a DIY attitude and some great signed bands. Highlight acts include critically lauded indie popstars Pete and the Pirates, the wonderfully unpolished Let’s Wrestle and noise rock mentalists Screaming Tea Party, recent supporters of The Go! Team on their last U.K. tour.

Ninja Tune
Not a label to check out for traditionally guitar based indie fans, but a great label nonetheless. Ninja Tune has a huge roster of excellent turntablists (an unsung art form) and hip hop artists, including Mr Scruff, Kid Koala and Roots Manuva. With their own radio station filling the net waves with soul, jazz and hip hop, Ninja Tune are definitely a worthwhile checkout for the indie fan looking for something a bit different.

Kill Rock Stars
Founded in 1991, Kill Rock Stars has some great bands both in its alumni and current roster. Past attributed acts include Bikini Kill, Elliott Smith and The Gossip. The Decemberists (one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the last decade) and Deerhoof are two standout acts from those currently signed; IMO, Deerhoof.

Saddle Creek
Another pretty big label, at least in indie terms, Saddle Creek provide a home to folk singers Bright Eyes, Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor, as well as more indie pop punk orientated bands like Desaparecidos and The Faint, as well as the brilliantly talented folk rock/blues revival band Two Gallants. As a label, Saddle Creek are one of the more collectively motivated labels in the list; many acts share band members in communal fashion, which is refreshing in a record industry often dominated by separatism and rivalry over sales and listener numbers

The Leaf Label
The Leaf Label is based in Yorkshire and features a lot of very small and mostly unheard of artists. Some of its more popular names include singer songwriter Essie Jain, gypsy music collective A Hawk and a Hacksaw (featuring Jeremy Barnes, previously the percussionist in the incredible Neutral Milk Hotel), Efterklang and Wildbirds & Peacedrums.

Our Record Label
I think that the record company that would Appeal to us the most would be Sony BMG. The reasons why I think this would be the best record label for us to use is because the power that this company has is what our artist would need in order to propel him into the public and giving him the backing as well as the image that he needs in order to be big in the music industry. Another reason why I think that Sony BMG would be the best record label for our artist is because the record label has worked with artists such as, Mike Posner, Skrillex and Calvin Harris. This is another reason as i think these artists can be seen as falling under our genre of music (dance) and so this is why i think our artist would best suit this record Label.



Monday 24 September 2012

Adorno And Horkeimer's Theory

The Culture Industry
Adorno and Horkheimer were philosophers and took on the term 'culture industry' to argue that the way in which items were produced was comparable to how other industries manufactured vast quantities of consumer goods. What this is stating is that the culture industry is always made up of the same things and a pattern can be seem between how some items are produced compared to other items within the culture industry. Adorno and Horkheimer also argued that the culture industry showed an 'assembly-line character' which could be observed in the synthetic, planned method of turning out its product. Adorno and Horkheimer's point here is that they (the industry) just want to make as much money out of them (the product) as possible in a short amount of time.

The X-Factor Machine
Adorno and Horkeimer linked the idea of the 'culture industry' to a model of 'mass culture' in which cultural production had become a routine, standardised repetitive operation that produced undemanding cultural commodities which in turn resulted in a type of consumption that was also standardised, distracted and passive. What Adornon and Horkeimer is stating here is that we've become so adjusted to these pop artists that we really don't expect anymore so this is why it is becoming more and more easier to make things that will wow an audience as the audience only need a little something changed with regards to the artist or their songs in order to make it more special than the last artist who was loved by the public.

Who's In Control
Adorno and Horkheimer's view of cultural production has, with some justification, often been portrayed as the pessimistic lament of cultural elitists who were dismayed at what they perceived to be the homogeneity and vulgarity of 'mass' taste and who were concerned that the potential for artistic creativity in music, literature and painting had been co-opted and corrupted by the production methods and administrative regimes of industrial capitalism. Adorno and Horkheimer's views here are that it is disappointing to see that everything has become the same within the industry and it's horrible as now anything that is for a mass audience is just the same and is produced the same way each time. Also Adorno and Horkheimer stressed the structures of economic ownership and control of the means through which cultural products are produced and argued that this directly shapes the activities of creative artists and consumers.

The X-Factor
Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the 'culture industry' operated in the same way as other manufacturing industries. All work had become formalised and products were made according to rationalised organisational procedures that were established for the sole purpose of making money.Adorno and Horkheimer is arguing that everything is dragged out to the longest possible point in order to gain more money from the viewers, X factor is an example of this as their series runs for a long time consisting of; auditions, boot camp, judges houses, live shows, semi final (celebrities) and the final.

Standardisation
Adorno and Horkheimer argued that all products produced by the culture industry exhibited standardised features. The argument here is that there is nothing spontaneous about the process of cultural production. It has become a routine operation that can be carried out in an office by the application of specific formulae. Adorno noted that songs which became successful over time were often referred to as 'standards', a category that clearly drew attention to their formulaic character. From the 'plan' to the details, songs were based around repetitive sequences and frequently recurring refrains. This as done for quite calculated commercial reasons, so that the song would imprint itself on the mind of the listener and then provoke a purchase. For Adorno, the production of bit songs had become a mechanical and manipulative operation motivated purely by commercial gain. Think about the popular songs that you might hear throughout an average day (radio, shopping, television, club or bar). Are songs becoming too predictable? are they becoming standardised.This is stating that we have to look far and else where to find something that is unique and doesn't sound like a different song that you've already heard.

Pseudo Individuality (Pseudo meaning false)
Adorno and Horkheimer were also critical of what they referred to as pseudo individuality. By this they meant the way that the culture industry assembled products that made claims to 'originality' but which when examined more critically exhibited little more than superficial differences. Adorno and Horkheimer invoked the image of the lock and key, an item that is mass produced in millions, whose uniqueness lies in only very minor modifications. Adorno and Horkheimer are stating here that with regards to the X factor the winners who come from that show are all the same and have very minimal differences.

To Conclude
Adorno and Horkheimer believe that the culture industry allows people to become 'masses' and be easily manipulated by capitalist corporations and authoritarian governments. Adorno and Horkheimer thus present us with a powerful arguement about what happens to culture when it is subect to the structural control and organisation of industrial capitalist production, it becomes merely a standardised, formulaic and repetitive element of 'mass culture'. It has no aesthetic value whatsoever and leads to a very specific type of consumption that is passive, obedient and easily manipulated for the purpose propaganda or advertising.

Saturday 22 September 2012

Analysis Of 'Around The World' (Daft Punk)



  • The first thing we immediately realise about this music video is that it is extremely random as we are shown a wide shot of all the dancers in action as the song picks up it's beat.
  • Goodwin's theory could be applied here as the visuals could be seen to match with the lyrics of the song as it says 'around the world' and the dancers are walking what appears to be once continuous circle up and down stairs and around the dancers.
  • What i like about this video is the complete randomness of all the dance scenes that are thrown together in one video and hopefully wih the right deas, i would like to excorporate something like this into our music video.
  • What is also good about this music video is that it's so very simple but you just dont realise how simple it is as the dancers distract you with their moves within the video.
  • I think the costumes tht i have been used with regards to the dancers is very effective as it hides their idetity and this is something that i may wish to suggest as an idea for our music video.
  • I think the idea of not having the artist visible within the video is also a very good idea as it means that we as a spectator are not drawn away from what is happening in the music video.
  • The fact that this video could be seen as the same genre as our video is brilliant as it means that we are able to pull ideas from this music video which could be included within our music video.
  • I also like the fact that when the dancers, with the weird diformed bodies for costumes, are taking steps on the stairs, the music seems to be matching their every step which i think is something that we could perhaps try and ecorporate into our music videos.

Friday 21 September 2012

Boosh Logo Design


This is the logo that we as a group chose in the end for our DJ. The reason we chose this one is because it stood out more with the fist behind the two 'o' and it also looks the most professional. Even though it would be wrong to say that we are looking for a professional logo considering that our logo is for a DJ who specialises in dance music but it has to look the part and it does.


This is a good logo, it's easy to understand and it does look professional, however it's doesn't connote the genre of music that we are doing. This would have been our second option for our logo as it has two of the factor we are looking for but it lacks stand out features as well as the communication of genre.


This logo was more of a fun logo that shows the fun side of DJ Boosh however this was not what we were looking to develop, we are more focused on the hardcore party side of DJ Boosh so we decided not to go with this logo.


This could be seen as the worse logo as it connotes a different logo altogether so this is why we haven't chose this as our logo. Also the yellow does not go with the blue and there isn't even one mention of the fact that Boosh is even a DJ

Thursday 20 September 2012

Choosing Our Brief And Brainstorming Ideas



In this lesson we as a class split ourselves into groups in which we would be making our music video together. I decided that I wanted to work with Luke, Aaron and Luke. Once we had settled down we were them given the 7 briefs to look through in order to decide which we wanted to make a music video for. Once we had looked through all of the briefs we narrowed it down to three briefs and then selected this one from the three as this specific brief match each of our thoughts and ideas. What we all liked most about this brief was mostly that the dislikes of 'Magma' was pop videos and no one in the group wanted to make a pop video. The best thing about this criteria that the group liked was that the artist didn't need to feature within the music video and the greatest thing about the dance/house genre is that it can be as random as you want it to be.

Now that we had chosen the brief that we wanted to make a music video for, we then began to look into greater detail at how we may need to change the brief so that it matched what we may want to do with regards to our ideas. The only thing that we wanted to change on our brief was the name of the band as we thought that this wasn't really a good name for an upcoming DJ (it didn't really stand out). So we brainstormed new ideas for the name of the DJ and we also began to think of some ideas which may take place within our music video. As you can see below these are the ideas that we thought of within our group.

Ideas
Some of our ideas include;
  • Having plenty of dance routines throughout our music video to make it into a very dancey video.
  • To have four main dancers within the video. I think four is the best number as it's not too overwhelming and at the same time it's not too boring.
  • I think our main idea is based around spoofing other iconic pop videos. The reason why we have chosen this as our main idea is because we feel that our artists, DJ Boosh doesn't like cheesy pop videos and so we think that spoofing the videos would be the best idea for our music video.
  • Some of the music videos that we wish to spoof include; Queen - I Want To Break Free (which will include dressing up in drag), perhaps some S Club 7 music videos, The Ketchup song and even a new chart topper at the moment called Gangnam Style.
  • What we plan to do is use the scenes from each of these videos and use their dance routines in order to spoof the videos.
  • We plan to use random cosutmes that include morph suits and drag (for the Queen video) in order to hide our dancers identities but at the same time make it loom fun.
  • I think it would be a good idea to add a rewind effect within our video to add a bit of fun to the video.
  • Our locations could include us being anywhere, so we have decided at the moment to keep that at an open option as the pop videos that we may want us to do could lead us anywhere from a living room in a house or even a gym.  

Tuesday 18 September 2012

Analysis Of 'Viva La Vida' (Coldplay)




  • First shot we are shown is of what looks to be a rose opening, this symbolises passion, lust, love and other such things like this.
  • As the music video continues we are able to establish that an effect has been used throughout the video, the effect used reminds me of the one that has been used in the Aha video 'Take On Me'.
  • The effect that has been used is a picture effect that makes the image look like an old photo that has been printed on paper that has creases.
  • We can establish straight from the first sighting of the leading singer in Coldplay that there is going to be quite a few close ups being used of the artists.
  • We are then shown one of the band members playing the guitar which shows us codes and conventions of the soft rock genre. As the codes and conventions of this genre is that usually there is a performance within the music video where the band will play whilst the lead singer lip sinks the words to the camera.
  • As we are watching one of the band members playing the guitar the effect changes once again and looks even more like the comic effect that is used in the video 'Take On Me'.
  • Goodwins theory of the lyrics forming a relationship with the action on the screen happens within this video as the lead singer quotes 'enemies eyes' as he points to his own eyes. Also this happens once again as he qutoes 'as the bells ring' and the video once again like it does throughout the video cuts to a bell being strung.
  • The wide shot is then used to show the whole band as up to now throughout the video we have been show little clips of the keyboard player within the group, the drummer and the guitarist and now with this wide shot we finally see the whole band playing together like it should be in a soft rock music video.
  • More close ups are used of each band member to establish who they are and to make sure the audience know who is singing the song.
  • A good use of colours have also been used in the background of the music video as it makes each individual member stand out against the swirling colours of red, white, cream and other bold shades.
  • The clothing of the band reminds me of a sort of indie look, so perhaps the genre could be soft rock/indie. The band is wearing rough looking jackets, minimal colour but has the look of an idie rocker.



Monday 17 September 2012

Case Study On Freddie Mercury


Friday 14 September 2012

Introduction To Music Videos

What is the purpose of a music video;
  • To create a recognisable image that will appeal to the Target Audience
  • Marketing tool for the artist/band
  • Increase airplay of the song for example on the radio or om TV
  • Create more interest in the album
  • Sell singles, albums and the band/artists brand
Media Theorist - Andrew Goodwin

Wrote about music videos and stated that they follow certain rules and codes and conventions. He stated that there are 6 rules;

  1. The record company's demands for exposure of the artist will mean a lot of close-up shots of the singer/band.
  2. There will be a relationship between the music and visuals.
  3. There will be a relationship between the lyrics and visuals.
  4. There will be genre characteristics, for example rock music videos show live music performances, hip hop videos present images of wealth and a 'gansta' lifestyle and boy bands have dance routines.
  5. There will be references to the notion of looking for example television screens and mirrors with people looking at each other or at the audience. Voyeurism and scopophillia can be linked to this as well as the male gaze theory.
  6. There will be some use of inter textual referencing.
Formula For Analysing Music Videos  (remember denotation and connotation)
  1. Denotation of performance, narrative and other visual elements
  2. Genre characteristics and cinematography - apply Goodwin
  3. Mise-en-scene
  4. Editing - connecting images with lyrics, has SFX been used? To what effect? Apply Goodwin
  5. Notion of looking - apply Goodwin if possible
  6. Inter textual referencing -  is there any? whats the effect?

Jay Z - 99 Problems




  • High speed editing from start to finish, shows the audience the codes and conventions o a hip hop/RnB video.
  • The costume that Jay-z is wearing within the video connotes that the genre of the music video is hip hop/RnB as he is wearing; gold chains, baseball cap, big bomber jacket, baggy jeans and is showing a derogatory treatment of women which is usual in these types of videos.
  • We can see the way in which women are being treated as they are being shown as objects as they pose in bikinis.
  • A lot of illegal stuff is happening within the videos as there are dog fights, violence as well as drugs.
  • The setting os in a dangerous neighbourhood (maybe Brooklyn) a run down area that shows prison fences, basketball courts and people in balaclavas shooting guns.
  • Record shop shots are shown throughout the video, suggests 'keepin it real' it represents jay z as having musical integrity.
  • Black and white effect 'ghetto style' perhaps representing old american films, opposite of the usual romantic narrative in old american films, the effect makes everything seem darker/more rundown.
  • Intertextual reference to Rick Ruben - founder of Def Jam i.e the triangle Jay-z makes with his hands.
  • Low angles of Jay-z and close ups used make him look powerful, puts the audience in awe of him.






  • Goodwins theory can be applied as the lyrics match the visuals, especially on the pieces of cardboard the elephant holds up.
  • Narrative of the music video could possibly be linked to the the story of the leader within the band Coldplay.
  • The song paradise also could help us as the audience to understand what the music video is about and why they have made it in this way. 
  • We as the audience can hear through the lyrics that the elephant (Coldplay lead singer) is trying to find his Paradise.
  • As the band member takes the elephant mask of half way through the song this is perhaps a 'cocky' thing to do by the band member, maybe he wants to prove that he can ride a unicycle and that its not someone else.
  • The costume suggests that in fact the lead singer of Coldplay wants the audience to know that its a real person and not an actual elephant.
  • As per usual in a soft rock/indie video we are shown a shot of the band playing their instruments together, this is a code and convention of this genre.
  • Through the lyrics and the visuals as well as the title we as an audience can establish that this music video is trying to tell us that perhaps the lead singer of Coldplay was trying to find his paradise in his own life an now that he has his band that finally he's in Paradise and has found the freedom he's been looking for.