My 3 main texts I am analysing are Nirvana - 'Nevermind', Radiohead 'The king of limbs' and Lady Gaga 'Born this way'.
Lady Gaga has a high promotion value due to the use of global advertising. She is part of a huge record Label called Interscope records, as they are so big they are able to promote Lady Gaga and get her to Number 1 just through advertisement. Born this way debuted in top 5 spots of every major Billboard 200. She sold over a million copies of 'Born this way' in the first week of sales and 440,000 copies on amazon in the first 2 days just at 99 cents.
Lady Gaga's music is very mainstream which means it will played a lot on radios and on tv programmes as she is very well known and a lot of people like this sort of music. Her type of genre is synth pop, which is a sort of dance pop genre which has high influences of pop music from the 1980s such as Madonna and David Bowie with the costumes, this influences more ranges of audiences who share a love for these artists because they are able to relate.
Gaga's approach is very modern to try and appeal to a more mainstream audience. With her music video it is very cinematic as she uses lots of extra effects and editing to get a more modern effect. At the beginning of her 'Born this way' video it is introduced as a story of her giving birth to evil and good. She has a very high production value compared to my other 2 texts which makes it more appealing and interesting to watch. She also always makes references to her fans 'Put your paws up' this keeps the fans attention and keep them wanting more. Lady Gaga is famous through the internet world she uses this to her highest advantage and at 1 point did have the most followers on twitter. she has around 18,000,000 follower on twitter and 46,000,000 followers on Facebook, this indicates how successful lady gag is through the internet world and globally. Lady Gaga makes 1/3 of her cash through social media which is such a vast amount for just publicising herself and earns around $30 million just through her twitter account alone.
To help promote her music her record label Interscope records get her involved in many different advertisement campaigns which could just be Tv programmes or tours but all promote her and her music. She was part of a promotional tour and live performances of 'Born this way' and its accompanying singles in Europe, Asia, and North America. She performed 'Born this way' on her monster ball tour 6 days after her accompanying single began on Feburary 13th 2011 at 53rd grammy awards in Los Angeles.
Ladg Gaga is able to have a high global appeal through the use of internet as it is very widely used and are able to get information across and release little clips of her music to help entice the audience and create suspense for when a new album is going to be released. She also involves a lot of sexual objectification in her music videos such as dancing in her under ware and touching her body, this is used as uses and gratifications for the audiences pleasure. Lady Gaga is very well known for her strange behaviour and costumes this is also used in the high production, this creates social integration as people begin to talk and introduce friends as they talk about her performances. It is a lot easier now then it used to be to promote your work as it can go viral in seconds if you put the right things across. Also with her being part of Interscope Records they have great knowledge of how to promote music and make it big with just the use of advertisements. Also because Lady Gaga is part of pop music it has abider appeal as it has a hybrid audience.
However Nirvana had to take a very different approach, this was because they first became known in 1989 and they were part of an independent record label called sub pop they did not have internet then which made it very difficult to promote and advertise their music, they also weren't too bothered about becoming famous so didn't put much effort in to their work. Their first album was called 'Bleach' and gained some very good critical reviews however failed to chart in America. By 1991 Geffen then signed Nirvana who are a bigger record label they then released 'Nevermind' which was a change to the popular sound and was less rebellious. It was first released by DCG records in 1999 with an optimistic expectation of 250000 copies but now sell 30 million copies worldwide.
It took Nirvana 5 months of touring until they reached the charts. 'Never mind' became Nirvanas first no.1 album in January 11th 1992 replacing Michael Jackson from the top spot.
They eventually after years became global as they did not have the use of internet and had to use Mtv, top of the pops, magazines, word of mouth and reviews. However at the beginning they couldn't be bothered with being signed to a contract they didn't want to be promoting their music they just wanted to sing and play thats all they enjoyed. This influenced them to rebel against all of the advertisement, for example they weren't allowed to sing live on top of the pops so they mimed stupidly, although this made them seem silly it also got them noticed as they rebelled against everything and caused social integration. They also performed on the Jonathon Ross show and sang they wrong sing which also got them noticed.
Although they were very rebellious and known as the Grunge genre which was amid of metal, punk and pop a lot of people still like them and many girls did swell which was very shocking. Although it took them a lot longer to become global as they didn't have the use of technology they they eventually became global and are still selling copies now of their music. They were still selling music after Curt Cobain killed himself they were still releasing this music whilst he was dead. This also means it is open to a wide range of audiences which is hybrid. This makes it more accessible to different audiences and more people enjoy this genre.
In stark contrast Radioheads 'King of Limbs' album was released in 2011. Although they evolved their music in the era where technology took off they chose to limit their choices of using the internet and used other methods.They released this album in February 2011 and promoted it only through the bands website which would grasp their true fans attention as they would be constantly checking for release dates. In march they then released the physical copies in CD and vinyl and sold between 300,000 - 400,000 copies. In only the first week of sales the sold 69,000 copies this proves how some bands don't need the internet the promote their music they have loyal fans.
In 2007 they decided to use a very controversial advertisement. They were tied down to a contract with EMI for a 6 album contract and when it was their 7th album they decided to be independent and not be tied down. The released their album 'In the rainbow' in 2007 at download only and they set it so that you could pay what you wanted. This got them a lot of press although some was negative it all helped towards their advertisement and as they realised it was so successful they then went of to release another album with their own set price which was also very successful.
Artists find it very difficult when releasing music in this day and age as their is so much illegal downloading going on you can't control it and it means the artists are losing out on vast amounts of money. Although Radiohead then went on to release another album called 'Lotis Flower' it was a self released album and was a very low budget mdci video but also very successful its reflected their style and attitude through the music video and appeals to a niche audience. Radiohead made it their mission to own all physical releases as it would get them a lot more money through doing this.
