Transcript

Contrasting career artists

Including Dyer’s and Negus’s perspectives

Kristina Dubrovskaya and Sophie Blank

Taylor Swift(synthetic artist)

Taylor Swift is an interesting example of starting her career by being purely organic artist but then changing the star image by adopting the synthetic approach

a little bit about her success:

Taylor Swift is a seven-time GRAMMY winner, and the youngest recipient in history of the music industry’s highest honor, the GRAMMY Award for Album of the Year. She is the only artist in history to have an album hit the 1 million first-

week sales figure three times

Starting her careerShe was very successful when had an organic ideology of creativity. For example, She became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house and later, the release of Ms. Swift's self-titled debut album in 2006 debuted at No. 3 and 39 weeks later, it hit the top of the charts and has sold more than 2.5 million copies. Also, her third single, "Our Song," made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a No. 1 song on the country chart.

• Country• Songwriter• Playing the guitar

Teardrops on my Guitar• 2006• Taylor referred to as a

composer of this song• we can see the instrument-

guitar that she used to played on

• it is clearly a pure beauty, no special effects, natural environment.

• the music was targeted to the teenage girls

2012In this year, the changing of Taylor’s style started to appear

• «I knew you were trouble» - noticeably different genre and different Taylor

• «We are never ever getting back together»- more dance music where you can hardly notice country influences

• she changed her fashion style

• she began to be involved in bigger amount of scandals

BAD BLOODSwift began teasing the music video in May on Instagram by posting photos of each character. The video broke Vevo's 24-hour viewing record by reaching the maximum views in its first day of release.

she is very different in this music video and clearly it is more about action than her talent. There are not only sexy elements that were already been in her previous music videos (such as we are never getting back together) but also a Rebellious element (there is a battle between her and other characters). She is shown to be powerful, story and VERY different to initial Taylor with guitar and lovely curls. Instead of cute dresses, she wears revealing outfits in this music video.

Richard Dyer«stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated»

• Her image has changed: before 2012, she gave this innocent image of country-songwriter

• According to Dyer, in order to achieve success, artists need to have some common values of music stardom.

before 2012

-youthfulness

- Originality - Creativity/

talent

after 2012

- Rebellious- Sexual

magnetism- Originality

(questioned)- Aggression/ anger (last music video

show these)

Taylor Swift

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DIGIPAKS

He emphasized the role of stars in film, TV and music. A star is an image, not a real person that is constructed out of a range of material

such as video, artwork, performance, media appearance etc. Stars depends upon a range of subsidiary media- magazines, TV, radio, the internet- in order to construct an image for themselves which can be

marked to their target audience.

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There are two main paradoxes that make the star’s image incomplete in order to built an audience’s interest to complete the image.

Paradox 1

«the star must be simultaneously ordinary and extraordinary for the consumer»

Paradox 2

«The star must be simultaneously present and absent for the consumer»

but unfortunately for her fans, she doesn't really noticed and remember them

Keith Negus

Identifies two distinct ways of thinking about potential artists from within the music industry. These ideologies (either organic or synthetic) shape the way in which the artists’ images and careers are developed, and the way that they are marketed towards specific target audience

2006 ORGANICnatural look

she wasn’t involved in any scandal situations

had an naturalistic approach to her star image (e.g. natural looking hear; elegant, country style in outfits etc)

she was a songwriter and plays the instrument by herself

she didn’t aim to be everywhere and all the time to create word of mouth

She wasn’t change hugely by the record label. She was given freedom to be who she wanted

she was given freedom to explore oneself

the albums were advertised more then merchandise stuff

2015 SYNTHETIC She became a more commercially-orientated star

moved from country to popular pop

However, she is still involved in composing her songs

Firstly her songs were clearly targeted to the teenage girls, but now looking at her music video it is hard to say that her initial target audience haven't changed.

she changed her style completely in order to create a more bright and pop based star image

her style was reconstructed in order to meet the the majority’s preferences

Emphasis now is put mainly on single sales. merchandise rather than promoting the album itself

Taylor Swift

Bob Dylan (organic)

• Bob is Dylan is an American singer songwriter, artist and writer

• Singles: Mr.Tambourine Man (1965), Hurricaine (1976)

• influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades

DIGIPAK

• Bob Dylan has a naturalistic approach. He is known for his distinctive voice, depressing yet witty lyrics, lyrics about important social issues, harmonica, curly hair, lyrics inspired by real life events, often dresses entirely in Black, often wears a stetson hat, thin moustache, his seemingly personal but often mysterious and nebulous lyrics, low rasping voice

• People loved his originality and uniqueness

Hurricane (1976)

• Record labels: 1961- Columbia signed him to a contract and then released his first album, containing two original songs.

• 1962-"The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" appeared, with all original songs including the 1960s anthem "Blowin' in the Wind."

• You could argue that his albums were aimed at older or more sophisticated consumers

• Dylan increasingly evolved but had the time through out his career

• Incomplete picture artist


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