The three main texts all hold importance in the industry. I
will explore these individuals and what they have done to change the course of
the mainstream music industry/distribution and the success socially within the
media – how music began to travel on screen.
My first text Nirvana created a new genre within the history
of music. Creating ‘Grunge’ the group fused pop, punk and rock together. This
allowed the band to target a mainstream audience; gathering people away from
the pop artists who were major stars at the same time as nirvana were first
starting out. Signed to a major label
called ‘Geffen’ (which was a previous label ‘sub-pop’) which was a huge record
label with big investments, from this they had mass opportunities to be put on
screen and be previewed by a mass audience.
Their first album ‘bleach’ (since its release in 1989)
has sold over 1.7 million units in the United States alone.
The second text I’ll be looking at is
Radiohead. Their international success
stemmed from Thom Yorke’s independency. Lead singer Yorke didn’t conform to the
everyday band around in the 80’s+. They did this by first by not having a
record label to manage and distribute their music and merchandise. Radiohead introduced digital distribution, a
whole new movement that brought the band success. The album ‘in rainbows’ was
released digitally as an mp3 on their website with the price at ‘Pay what you
want’. This scheme allowed the band to gather publicity and to interact with
their fan base. They gained success and free advertisement with talk shows discussing
the bands actions, whether this was intended or a natural innocence it gained
them a wider popularity.
My final text Lady Gaga is a pop who
targets mainstream audience. Gaga created this type of pop culture that insists
of being individual. Signed to Interscope
(part of the Universal group) Her album ‘born this way’ .
Radiohead first released 'Creep', their debut
single, in 1992 and performed it regularly until 1998. They then dropped it
from their set until 2001 and played it sporadically until Reading Festival in
2009, the song's last outing.
Radiohead – 400,000 copies of king of limbs. Didn’t get to
number 1 but they still made more money because no label
-
