Why piracy is perpetuating plastic pop?

The highlight from this article is the fact that the music industry is undergoing a big issue with people copyrighting and illegally downloading music. Massive attacks 3D told the BBC that up too 25,000 per site of the downloads from the unlicensed sites and that if you multiply this throughout the whole world, then all of his profits are gone. This conveys the fact that downloading illegal copies contributes to the failing in companies such as HMV and also the artists themselves. This could also become an issue for big companies such as iTunes in the future.

However, one artist who did stand up was Lilly allen and argued that it was to 'easy' to breach copyright rules online. But this did cause thousands of messages threats to be targeted towards Lilly Allen and this included death threats, which caused her to shut down her website and also inhibited other artists from speaking out.

 Billy Corgan from smashing Pumpkins stated 'commerce starts at the point where people are happy with paying for something – and the fact that technology now allows people to choose to not pay for music has turned music culture into a service culture.'  This shows that now people have the option to not pay for a single, they choose to download the records illegals and think nothing of it.

The change of an artist

Record labels also changes the artist image over time, an example would be miley cyrus. At the beginning of the career she was known as the innocent Hannah Montanna, but over the years she turned into a rebel teenager with the surprising single called 'Can't be tamed' .

Currently, miley cyrus is seen as a wild out of control adult, which songs about sex and drugs. This totally contrasts which her image at the beginning of her career, but also shows how artists change over a period of time.

Pop Music Genre

Genre is the classification of a text according to its style and content and possibly its form and manner of production. 

These  are the categories which come under genre:

* Pop (including global categories like Europop, Arabic pop, Cantopop, J-Pop and K-Pop)

* Dance

* R&B

* Hip-Hop/Rap

* Rock

* Punk

* Country & Western

* Folk

* Jazz

* Blues

* Latin

* Gospel

* Reggae

* New Age

Genre and Artist Image

Image is a key paradigm for music genre, with an artist's look categorising them before they start singing or playing. For an artist or band to truly fit a genre category, they must be represented as doing so visually, on record sleeves, publicity photos and in music videos. Visual is important for example adele has a complete different visual to niki minaj. 

Adele, whose music draws from classic pop styles of the 1960s and 1970s, is often photographed wearing classic, retro clothing that associates her with her role models Aretha Franklin or Dusty Springfield and her image represents her amazing voice and the pure personality. 

Whereas niki minajs clothing consists of low cropped tops, mini skirts and vibrant colours which potray an aggressive loudmouth fake artists. Both these sell singles but to different target audiences. These are just two examples from many different genre categories to chose from.

Studying Pop Stars

 While pop music changes, and is constantly evolving into a variety of hybrid forms, pop stars retain common characteristics. The songs change, but the singers remain the same. This explains the journey of the artist from a young age to an older age, they represent this by changing the types of songs the artists sings; at the beginning of the career innocent songs about friends and at the end about love. However, the type of the singers voice rarely changes.

The following below are looked for in a up and coming new artist:

* Youthfulness

* Rebellion

* Sexual Magnetism

* An anti-authoritarian attitude

* Originality

* Creativity/talent

* Aggression/anger

* A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour

* Conspicuous consumption, of sex, drugs and material goods

* Success against the odds

However, the longer a star remains successful on the world stage, the more difficult it is to continue to embody these values. Originality and creativity burn out. The

rock'n'roll lifestyle erodes good looks. Young stars get old, complacent, become part of the establishment. The new target audiences are looking for new artists and because they are a new generation they expect new and different songs. 

An example of an artist who had the look and the voice for a pop star was Will young. He won the Xfactor and was popular for 1-2years, however now he is making no singles or albums and the new generations don't know who he is. This often happens with the winners or contestants from the Xfactor.

On the other hand, Micheal Jackson and Amy Winehouse are examples of pop stars who 'live fast' and 'die young.' These artists never loose their image and only have a certain amount of well known albums and records, but they are known as heroes and this is passed on down through the younger generations.

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