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POP MUSIC GENRE

Based on the article ‘A background to the music industry and some basic theory’.

+ Each genre within music has numerous sub-genres and a lot of hybrids and mash-ups. Each genre does however, have ‘unique musical characteristics’ but also it is made clear in this article that ‘other factors such as clothing, hair and lifestyle’ also play a huge part in distinguishing the artists’ genre.

Another way that genre can be determined is through their use of specific sites ‘of institutional support’ such as ‘performance space, radio stations, specialist record shops, magazines and festivals’.

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This article demonstrated to me how important a star’s image is as artists can be criticised and categorized into a genre before they have even opened their mouths. It is not even just a simple case as to what the artist wears but they must also represent the genre ‘on record sleeves, publicity photos and in music videos’. As I will be producing products that include a music video, the digipack and a website, this article has highlighted to me the extreme importance of the image of the artist and how this must transfer into all other products that are related to this artist resulting in a common and clear theme that is consistent and one that the fan base will be able to recognise and relate to.

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A clear example of a genre image is the hip hop genre image as it is hard to differentiate between the majority of hip hop videos as many have ‘baggily dressed homeboys sitting on steps …swinging their arms and smiling at the booty passing by’ or ‘driving slowly in big old cars …swinging their arms and smiling at the booty the just passed’. For example look at the music video below this powerpoint.

+ Contrastingly, Adele is usually photographed wearing a clothing style that is a ‘classic pop style of the 1960s and 1970s’. This classic and retro clothing has recently been associated with Adele’s ‘role models Aretha Franklin or Dusty Springfield’ suggesting that Adele is a ‘serious’ and ‘soulful artiste’.

+ Artists can benefit from being pigeonholed into a specific genre as many consumers limit themselves to specific genres and therefore many artists have loyal fans and genre fans that will guarantee sales when they next release their new album. It also means that if an artists is linked to a certain genre, sites such as Spotify will then take your past genre choices and suggest similar artists creating more awareness and likelihood of purchase.