Research:Music industry 2012

Music industry on Prezi

PLANNING - Who is the original artist?

 

Before Ed Sheeran became famous, he was an independent artist. He plays the guitar and started writing songs at a young age. The fame occurred when he decided to post a video online, from there on the video had been seen by many viewers. But in 2011 he finally released an independent extended play, No.5 Collaborations Project, from this Ed Sheeran gained mainstream attention. Few months later he was signed to Atlantic records.

I would describe Ed Sheeran’s style to be quite casual but he has his moments when he’d like to dress quite smart, however with an Ed Sheeran touch. The genre cannot be defined to just one, as many of the songs he sings overlaps a lot. It can either be pop, indie rock, acoustic, grime etc. As an artist he is young and very relatable to his audience, especially to the young audience out there. Most of the songs and videos he has produced recently, personally as a young audience myself I could say that some of the lyrics said are quite relatable and are meaningful too.

Planning - Locations

Watching some music videos of the same genre as our song (indie pop) we notice that outdoors locations are very common, and most popularly urban streets.

We came up with some possible locations we would like to include in our music video:

- Central London

- East passage

- Streets 

- Studio

- Train track

- Southbank

Here are some pictures and a video of our group planning planning together in lesson:

We have also decided that the name of our artist will be Ray Jones (performed by Nimar).

PLANNING - The Original Artist > Ed Sheeran

 I have analysed the website for the original artist, Ed Sheeran whom is the owner of our song choice ‘The City’. 

Looking through Ed Sheeran's website,  there is a store which is used to promote products; such as clothing and accessories.

Research - 'The City' lyrics

Here follows the lyrics of our song choice 'The City' by Ed Sheeran as they might inspire us with ideas and with the mood of our music video:

I hear the people walk by when it's late
Sirens bleed through my windowsill
I can't close my eyes
Don't control what I'm into
This tower is alive
The lights that blind keep me awake
With my hood up and lace untied
Sleep fills my mind
Don't control what I'm into

[Chorus]
London calls me a stranger
A traveller
This is now my home, my home
I'm burning on the back street
Stuck here sitting in the backseat
I'm blazing on the street
What I do isn't up to you
And if the city never sleeps
Then that makes two

The pavement is my friend
Hey, and it will take me where I need to go
I find it trips me up
And puts me down
This is not what I'm used to
The shop across the road
Fulfills my needs and gives me company
When I need it
Voices speak through my walls
I don't think I'm gonna make it
Past tomorrow

[Chorus]
London calls me a stranger
A traveller
This is now my home, my home
I'm burning on the back street
Stuck here sitting in the backseat
I'm blazing on the street
What I do isn't up to you
And if the city never sleeps
Then that makes two

And my lungs hurt
And my ears bled
With the sound of the city life
Echoed in my head
Do I need this to keep me alive?
The traffic stops and starts
But I need to move along

[Chorus]
London calls me a stranger
This is not my home
I'm burning on the back street
Stuck here sitting in the backseat
I'm blazing on the street
What I do isn't up to you
And if the city never sleeps
Then that makes two

Planning - mood board

Research - Social Networking sites in the Music Industry

With the new digital era, social networking websites became an effective way of promotion and marketing to artists since they are very popular and it enables direct connections with fan bases and fan promotion. MySpace is one of example of a popular social networking that many artists used for promotion - however it is good to remember that MySpace has now lost its popularity. In more recent times, Facebook and Twitter are the ones most popular to create a fan base as it enabled the artist to share multimedia and also enabled the fans to promote and interact with the artist. YouTube is another popular social networking website which effectively promotes artists as it allows subscribers, they can share videos and fans can comment, like and favourite which also allows some interaction.

Click in the icons to open the website.

A very famous example of an artist who built her fan base via the social networking website MySpace is Lily Allen. She already had a low record deal, but it wasn't until 2005 when she joined MySpace that she became a celebrity. She cleverly used the social networking to promote her music and build a fan base. She not only used it to distribute her music, as she used it to keep in touch with her fan base and deliver exclusive content to them as for example through her blog. She would also distribute multimedia including photos of music video shots, behind the scenes footage, daily video footage of Lily at home, etc, which gave the fans insight into Lily as a person creating an intimacy that was impossible before the internet.
(Source: http://www.vanseodesign.com/social-media/lily-ann/)

JME is an independent grime artist who uses Twitter to directly interact with his fans and launch promotions that encourage his fan base to buy his records (e.g. he delivered by hand an iPad to a fan as an award for sending him an album proof of purchase. 

Ed Sheeran was an independent artist, he had EPs released but didn't get notice until he posted an online video displaying   his diverse style through sbtv.co.uk, which led the rapper Example to invite Sheeran to tour with him. Ed Sheeran grew his fan base via YouTube and he became increasingly popular through the internet (viral). 

Now Ed Sheeran also uses Facebook to promote himself and keep in touch with his fan base. He leave messages directed at his fans explaining what he has been doing, he shares some multimedia, he shares links of websites and he asks for votes. 

http://www.facebook.com/EdSheeranMusic

As for my artist I believe I also would like to use YouTube and Facebook to promote his work as I believe Facebook is the most popular social networking that enables you to use a variety of different functions (share links, share photos, share videos, comment, write public messages) and it enables fan promotion (through liking or sharing material in their own social circle). YouTube is also a powerful mean of promotion because if people want to listen to music that is where they often go to. I believe both social networks have a quite wide audience but there is this emphasis on the younger audiences, which suits with our audience too. We could create an YouTube channel for our artist where he would upload videos that would promote him, and we could use Facebook to create a fan page like Ed Sheeran's.