A background to the Music Industry and some basic theory

Genres are constantly being created, crossed and revisited. Pop music is the one that is most dependent on genre. Each of the genres has unique musical characteristics. It’s not only the music that is associated with the genres; there are other factors such as hair and clothes. Also it depends on the genre where they perform, as this could be for example at festivals or on the radio.

Here is a list of just a few of the genres that music can fall into:

   Pop

   Hip-Hop

   Dance

   Rock

   Country/Western

   R&B

   Jazz

   Many more…

A stars image is very important for categorising them because people see them before they start singing/playing. As soon as the audience sees the artist they should be able to know what to expect from the artist. An artist must be represented visually in their videos and photos etc. This makes sure that they really do fit into their genre. Look can be as manufactured as sound. Music videos show what genre the artists fall into. For example all-boy bands usually have dance moments in the video, they are in places that are quite urban and they usually have a love interest in the songs (Westlife, One Direction).

When reading this article I was looking at what was said about Adele and how her image is created to show that she is serious, quite old school which goes back to the 60’s. I was interested to look at another woman artist and decided to just take the image of Nicki Minaj. Nicki Minajs image is a very important part of her music. She is seen as a fashion icon because of the unique, colourful and daring outfits that she wears. In an interview discussing her sexual image Minaj said, 'The female rappers of my day spoke about sex a lot… and I thought that to have the success they got, I would have to represent the same thing. When in fact I didn’t have to represent the same thing.'

She actually made a decision to ‘tone down the sexiness’. Minaj is trying to compete with the male rappers. And in a song ‘Moment 4 life’ she refers to herself as a ‘king’, not queen. By her image being so out there it shows how she is really trying to empower women.

When I am thinking about my promo pack I will take a lot of the information from this article. Just by looking at an image it should be clear what genre the artist is from. This therefore needs to be shown in my artist. The image and music should go together completely and there should be no contradictory factors. When looking at what song to use we must really understand the message of the song and what genre of music it is from so that we can show this in the video. The genre should be shown in the video, and the stars image.