thelisastuff

LLCE anglais L3, 20yo

[thelisastuff]

Music and advertising part.2

Today I will 'develop' some points about the relationship between the advertiser and the musician, and between the consumer and the commercials.

As we know from last week's post, brands will profit from the influence of the music they use into their commercials to catch the attention of the audience. The choice of music is important as the values attached to it will become the values of the brand. For example, Coca-Cola has developed its image by using characteristics such as authenticity and anti-authoritarianism, which are similar to those of rock music. Therefore, the audience will attach those characteristics, this image to the product and label it as 'cool'.

The use of the term 'cool' to label a product or a brand is pretty recent: before commercials and ads (as we know them today), the main concern of a brand was to prove the usefulness of its products. As ads developed and became more of an entertainement show (with the use of music, lights, special effects, creation of a story), coolness became a must-have for many brands to sell more, develop their image and build their reputation according to the audience they aim to reach.

More and more musicians are licensing to advertising, but we can observe that they are selective when they choose for which brand they will work: many musicians say they are more comfortable playing for a brand they would have supported as consumers. In the case of automobile brands, for example, the question of environmental impact will often influence the decision of the musicians. Plus, artists need to be careful as their reputation could be entached if the brand reveals itself being controversial (as many customers would boycott the brand and anything/anyone related to it). This concern is also valid the other way around.

Musicians also profit from this relationship as they can gain in visibility and views: people watching an ad and liking the music would probably try to find out who the artist is, especially since the development of the app Shazam (I know I do).

The impact ads have on potential customers is often unconscious: they use many artifices and techniques to make them want the product (and music is one of them). But even if the potentiel customer manage to see through the artifices and therefore be immunized against their influence, they would still judge the quality of those techniques and appreciate it or not.

That's it for today, it was just some points that I tried to present. Take care and see ya! ~

Source: As Heard on TV: Popular Music in Advertising.

[thelisastuff]

Music and advertising

Today I will try to focus on the use of popular music in advertising (mainly on TV, but every medium is of interest).

The use of pop music in TV commercials is regularly criticised by fans, critics and musicians. Even though it can mean more advantages for artists who try to escape the strings of music industry or radio, commercials also have their share of drawbacks. Plus, this “alliance” worries many artists and fans as the wall between “art for art’s sake” and “art for commercial interests” - which was already thin and blur - would eventually collapse if pop music in commercials developed at a point it would influence the production of music. But maybe this “marriage” between the two would work as they are both “cultural-commercial hybrids” : they both have this duality between art/culture - commonly considered as positive - and commercial interests/mass-medium/mass-production seen as potentially alienating by some.

For example, Rock music has been embodying resistance and opposition, but it tends to lose this meaning: how can a rock song still represent resistance and opposition after being used to sell washing liquid? It brings another issue to our attention : our perception of songs that we know or perhaps like is modified, altered after being used into TV ads that seem to empty it from their meaning. Another example is Nutella’s TV ad which uses one of the Jackson Fives’ songs, and it sort of “desacralises” it, empties it from its meaning as the lyrics are not important for the commercial - the goal being to use something familiar to “reassure” the consumer and push them to buy the product he woul have labels as “familiar”, thanks to the song used.

Then, are TV commercials more focused on commerce than art? Is the relationship between ads and pop music faire/equal or does pop music only serve TV ad’s interests? Another example marked me: I think it was in one of Bouygues’ ad on YouTube which used the song “Thirty Thirty-Five”: the commercial was about a happy family, with a kid playing with a phone. The song being really sweet and slow it created a nice atmosphere, but then I listened to the lyrics: I realised it was about the artist losing her child (miscarriage). I found it quite disrespectful and even creepy to use such a song in an ad for phones. Popular music seems to be alienated by TV commercials. If you want more examples of pop music used in ads, you can search for blind tests about ads on YouTube.

Recording artists risk their credibility with fans and critics if they chose to license their music for use in ad because of all this debate around whether it is alienating or not, and also because they might be categorised as artists producing music for ads - and if they produce music more “emotional” and “deep” it might sell less easily. Even though this picture of the debate seem rather negative at first glance, we should not forget that it can help artists find potential purchasers or opportunities to license their music for “higher use” - I.e. movies. Also, it has been noted that many songs which would have been forgotten by now know a second life with a different emotional meaning associated to a product or brand. This case has been seen mainly with classical music.

That’s it for today, see ya next week !

By the way, my topic for the dossier will be pop music and advertising. Take care !

[thelisastuff]

Quaranstreams

~ A huge part of the artists’ profits comes from concerts, then from streaming services and from music publishing/music sales. Due to COVID-19, tours have been cancelled for an indeterminated length of time, cutting the artists from almost a half of their revenues. Therefore, they need to find another way to perform, find another system to survive. Since the beginning of the pandemic, many artists - both large and indie artists - have been performing on virtual concert tours, using any platform that could support it.

We could think that Youtbe is the most popular one, as every artist oalready as a fan-base on it, and they would earn money from ads and views. Less obvious platforms like instagram are in fact well appreciated by large artists (Charli XCX, John Legend, Diplo...) However, most of indie artists seem to be flocking to Twitch: this platfrom ‘is more financially focused’ and offers a variety of sources of revenues as it supports tiers of subscriptions (people can subscribe for free to a channel with their Amazon Prime account) and donations (fans can tip in micro amounts with things like Cheers). To sum-up, Instagram seems to be more focused on reaching lots of people en masse, and Twitch is more suitable for earning money and to create virtual concerts, and therefore better to recoup a fraction of lost funds.  Twitch has another advantage: artists can help each other with two things. Frist, they can send their viewers to another artist’s channel at the end of their stream (’raids’), and second they can set up ‘auto-hosting lists’ which lets other artists stream on their channel while they are not live.This second point allows artists to sort of recreate a real concert: in concert there usually are supports acts which enable less-famous artists to gain in popularity and potentially create a fan-base.

From a fan’s point of view, the connection to their artist is stronger, closer, more intimate as they can comment the stream and talk dirrectly to the artist. They seem less unattainable, more ‘human’ - and less of a super-star they would admire and idealize during concerts For the artist this new kind of concert makes them feel more connected to their fanbase and less alone, standing in front of a mass.

For now, Twitch and virtual concerts are a way to limit the damages and ‘survive’ as they don’t know how long they will not be performing live.  But many are thinking of staying on Twitch after the crisis and it may lead to the development of a new kind of music consumerism. It could also influence Twitch and its ‘rules’ and culture as large artists are making the jump, biringing a built-in audience.

Have you watch one of your favorite artist’s stream? how different is it from concerts? 

See ya!  ~

https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/19/21185220/tours-canceled-musicians-marc-rebillet-twitch-livestreaming-coronavirus

[thelisastuff]

Youtube, music industry and copyrights

In my previous post, I said that artists can use YouTube to create a fan base and potentially be signed in a label. It is true for a part of them, but the other way around became more common: record labels such as Sonic Music Entertainment sign copyright contracts with YouTube - it means that YouTube can use their catalog on its platform - so that labels can propose their already-signed artists, but in exchange YouTube has to give the labels their money. It has two consequences: - first, it means that the strategy of the labels has changed: YouTube is no longer a competitor but a partner, and labels have learned how to make money out of its algorithm - second, as a large part of the label’s revenues are from YouTube, it will lead to an increase in copyright claims, sometimes unjustified. (There is also the question of ad revenues that we will perhaps discuss later) 

This copyright thing has become a real issue for YouTube creators: videos that contain even a few seconds of a song would be taken down. Some songs such as Hotel California automatically leads to a video being blocked (a few notes and you’re done). But it also is a way to be sure labels and musicians get their money (when it is justified): YouTube has built a tool for that, called the Content ID. According to an article on “The Verge”, it took 7 years to perfect the system and deliver the first $1 billion to copyright holders, but the next billion took only 2 years to be delivered. 

In fact, the difficulty to use a song without having issues with copyrights comes in part from the multiplicity of copyright protections: “both recordings of popular songs and the actual composition of those songs have separate copyrights protections”, and it also includes artists, composers, and songwriters. In addition to that, labels’ copyright contracts with youtube are all different making it harder to know what is protected, what is ot, and how you can use a song without having your video taken down. So, labels become more and more aggressive with their copyright claims - which is understandable as they wouldn’t lose money they have every right to have.  But at the same time, it leads to tensions in YouTube's creators' community, as some of those claims are definitely unjustified. The main reasons for this are that the laws on copyrights are outdated, not really adapted for this new kind of music’s use and consumption and that the definition of what “a fair use” is is more than vague. 

YouTube is torn between the two, between protecting its platform and allowing creators to post their content without risk of abuse from copyright claims, and its need to stay on good terms with recording labels especially since it launched its streaming ad-free service YouTube Music. YouTube is under pressure from for instance the Universal Music Group which insisted on the importance of “growing compensation from YouTube’s ad-supported and paid-subscription tiers” for artists on YouTube when they re-signed their agreement in 2017. 

This issue is only the tip of the iceberg as it hides many questions: the question of YouTube’s openness - as the platform is starting to professionalise artists and creators starts to feel “squeezed out by Hollywood and record labels”. The huge advantage YouTube offered at its beginning - everyone being able to share their content on YouTube and get visibility - starts to fade away. And the new algorithm of YouTube doesn’t help at all. As Mitch Stotlz, a senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Education said: “Adding in a lot more gatekeepers and adding more curation - that’s not the YouTube that’s wide open and the YouTube that we know today” 

The next years could be a turning point for YouTube, as it will have to decide on its next strategy to ensure its impact on popular culture and therefore popular music. Tell me more about your opinion on what Youtube will become - for example being replaced, or just become a new Spotify? Have you experienced yourselves this copyrights issue or know more about it?

See ya next week ! ~

[thelisastuff]

YouTube

We know that in the last decades a radio would target its audience by offering them a limited choice of music to be sure it will correspond to what they like. In doing so, people who listen for instance to rock-oriented radios were less likely to discover new genres such as country, pop, electro, etc. The only way for a listener to discover new music is to actively search for it.  We also know that the music industry and its gatekeepers are a huge barrier for new artists, new genres, and genres that are less easily categorised. By filtering and categorising music that way (originally to make more profit and lower the risk of spending money for a song/artist that will not work), radios and music industry limit the evolution of music: difficulty in accessing new inspirations, new genres less likely to develop... 

YouTube, created in 2005, seemed to be a huge step forward in the sense that previous filters and gatekeepers were no longer used. Anyone can upload their videos on it, mostly for free, meaning that the same artists that were struggling to see their music accepted into the music industry could now present it directly to their main target: the audience. No filter, no gatekeeper, nobody to decide wether a song is worth being presented to the world or not. The contact between the artist and the audience seems closer. Then, if the artist is lucky, they got views, likes and comments. Soon their music would be considered a « hit » and they would gain some money with YouTube. 

The interesting thing is to see that the story doesn’t stop here. The music industry is often on the lookout for new music that has had a huge success to sign the artist in a label, reducing the original risks of presenting something new to the audience (as the audience already liked it). In a sense, YouTube became a filter for the music industry to know what will sell and what will not. (We need here to be careful: we do not know if the audience on YouTube is likely to purchase the songs they listen for free on YouTube, what relationship YouTube and the music industry has, and other factors that require to be more studied.) 

What I want to discuss is whether YouTube really has no filter or if it still manage to categorised, separate and select genres and songs for the audience. 

Paul Covington, Jay Adams, and Emre Sargin are Google engineers in charge of YouTube algorithm who published a research paper in 2016 about, basically, how to get more views. 

The YouTube system is based on a recommendation engine which has a huge importance: 70% of the views come from it. The audience/user will open YouTube and see a list of recommendations based on several factors (what they listen to, how recently, channels they follow, demographic infos and location...). The Google engineers broke down the signals used in the algorithm: two of them focus on the click-through rate and the watch time. These two factors are the only ones (out of 7, the others being about the audience’s informations) that the artist can influence: they can optimise their content for both click bait and watch time, in hope to get more views and be more recommended by the algorithm. However, by doing so, aren’t they adapting to some sort of codes, filter or format? Are they really free in the choices they make about their music, or does their music have to meet certain standards to be potentially considered as “hits”?  

I encourage yall to see if as audiences you seem to regularly discover new genres, artists and songs on YouTube and if so, if they correspond to certain standards or not. Tell me more about your personal experience of YouTube under this post !

Have a good day and see ya for the next post! 

[thelisastuff]

Music industry and gender equality

The music industry is male-dominated, and it has consequences for women, such as a lack of visibility as an artist, a feeling of objectification, barriers, etc. To coarsely summarize the difficulties women encounter when working in the music industry, we can say they are not advantaged at any moment of their carrier at all. The music industry is already well-known as a selective business with creative jobs which, even though passionating, are precarious - except for some lucky artists/producers - and mentally exhausting. And this industry is an even harsher environment for women as they encounter even more arduously the social inequalities they already have to face daily. 

Let's look at some statistics from the report 'Inclusion in the Recording Studio' led by Dr. Stacy L. Smith: 

According to this study, women represent about 21.7% of artists: most of them will make it as an individual artist (31.5%), while only 4.6% of them will have a career in a duo and 7.5% will be in a band.

They also seem to face some barriers when it comes to writing popular songs: only 12.3% of the songwriters are women, meaning that 87.7% of the songwriters are men. Quite inequal, right?

But the most astonishing - if not dreadful - is to come: in the music industry, only 2.1% of the producers are women, meaning that men produce the overwhelming majority of popular music.

Women get fewer credits than men, are less nominated for a grammy than men, have to deal with inappropriate behaviors from men towards them.

However, one bright spot: the music industry seems to be making progress towards more diversity. 44% of artists across 700 songs from 2012-2018 were people of color, 52% being men, 73% being women.

But there is still plenty of progress to make as only 4 out of 871 producers were women of color.

Men still seem to have a stranglehold on the decision-making, controlling the production of popular music.

These conditions affect women working in this industry. But the fact that men dominate at every level and every stage of production of music means that the 'final product' is biased: popular music is mostly made by men, for men. The little representation women can have - as solo singers - is sometimes distorted by the male implication and their vision of women as being only an attractive body. 39% of women in this business felt objectified or hyper-sexualized, 43% felt not taken seriously, and 25% were the only women in their staff. As we know, popular music influence audiences and shape (to a certain extent) social conducts: so the lack of diversity and gender equality influence the audiences and contributes to reinforcing the social inequalities at every level. I have read a quote by John Berger that I find quite relevant on this matter: 'men learn how to look at women, women, instead, learn how to be looked at, or to see themselves through the eyes of a presumed spectator.'

Let's hope that the music industry will acknowledge the influence - and so their responsibility to some extent - they have on the majority of the population and take some measures for more equality and diversity.

[thelisastuff]

Jazz, a crossover musical genre

Jazz is a musical style born in the late 1800s. It is a mix of African American blues, gospel, work songs and ragtime in one hand and European influence in the other hand. Blues originates from the deep South of the USA where African-Americans who settled in the suburbs hoping to find a job started to sing together to express their feelings. Blues took place in the streets, spirituals in the churches, and a touch of European influence would transform this music into jazz. This European influence from instruments (trumpets, trombones, piano…), ballroom dances (polka, quadrille…) and parades would lead to the creation of this new genre, composed of several distinct characteristics: - The ‘swing’, with a ternary rhythm and a stress on after beats (2nd and 4th beat of a 4/4 measure) - The ‘scat’, onomatopes sung in harmony with the music, and ‘refrain’ or chorus played with the harmonies of each song during the improvisation - And, of course, the improvisation, based on the harmony of standards of jazz that each member of a band must learn to be able to improvise and re interpret the song. The improvisation in jazz music was a very new concept and, without any doubt, one of the reasons why jazz was able to adapt to, evolve with and go through several decades and still be a major music genre – and a very peculiar one as many experts don’t know if it can be classified as folk music, classical music or popular music.

Jazz music was born, but it still had a long way to go. When an African-American person was able to afford one of these European instruments, he/she still had to learn about harmonies, fingering, composition… No conservatory would accept them in their classes, and white bands wouldn’t – at first- play with them. So African-Americans formed their own bands and played some of the European repertoire in their own way, adding to it their touch: European music stresses the downbeat (1st and 3rd beat in a 4/4 measure) while African-American music stresses, as we saw, the 2nd and 4th beat, giving this ‘swing’ we enjoy so much. In New-Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, music was played everywhere – streets, shops, hairdressing salons, funerals… It was used by people to express their feelings. Unfortunately, because of the inherent racism in the USA, the first jazz bands to be recorded were white bands. Paul Whiteman, with his mediocre symphonic jazz band, was even presented as the ‘king of jazz’ But not for long.

One man would prove them wrong, and make everyone agree that is was he real ‘king of jazz’: Louis Armstrong. This musician from New-Orleans (trumpetist and singer for the most part of his career) was seen as someone with the ‘heart full of rhythm’. If he was really appreciated and famous among the black community in the beginning of his carrier, most critiques draw the line at 1929, considering that he went ‘too commercial’ in the 30s. Why did they think so? His music entered the music industry, with producers and managers wanting to orientate it towards a more white-audience, towards a more standardized kind of music, a mainstream one that the white audience could really appreciate. Soon, his name and face were everywhere, even in commercials for cars or beer. His producers focused their energy on him and not the spirit of his music anymore. It seemed that the central point of his music was now his influence, his personae, his signature (meaning his particular voice and skills). Fortunately, he was so talented that even when he ‘seemed’ to become ‘too commercial’, he still opened the path for the jazz to the big league, and shaped the jazz we know today, and with it the American music. Is every talented, creative musician meant to be grabbed by the music industry and then be considered as ‘too commercial’ for ‘purists’? Does being in the music industry take the artist away from the origin and spirit of his music, especially for jazz music? From that, because of the reject of and the opposition to the mainstream music, new kinds of jazz appeared (Hardbop, cool jazz..) considered as 'purer' - for a time.

[thelisastuff]

Sensorial Marketing

I was doing some shopping at Sephora the other day, trying to find the perfect gift for my little sister. Usually I take off my headphones before going inside, but this time I was listening to a pretty cool piano music playlist so I didn’t. And then it hit me: the music in this shop was so loud, so upbeat, stressful even, compared to mine!

That’s when i realised how calm I seemed to be compared to the others : I wasn’t feeling this sort of rush, my head wasn’t buzzing or anything, I wasn’t tensed. I was walking at a pretty slow pace in comparison.

I suppose you are starting to see my point here, but that day I trully realised how much music can influence our behavior, affect our mood and change our emotions (especially when it’s the same four songs played on a loop for 4 hours straight). And the Marketing Manager knows it and will try his/her best to put you into a ‘buy-it-all mood’.

In a shop, it gives you that rush, it urges you to buy the product without looking too closely at the price or the quality. But in a spa, it relaxes you and creates a calm atmosphere.

Does music affect you in the same way when you shop ? Next time, try listening to something calm when shopping and tell me if it changed your usual behavior!

See yall for the next post ~