Tag Archives: music

Music Peer Pressure

Posted in Bands & Music Artists, Music Business by

As a teenager we all felt the peer pressure of our friends and society about the kind of music we should like, or what is considered ‘good’ music.  As an adult, we read reviews, follow trends, and still allow society to dictate what we buy and listen to throughout our lives.  So what is it about society and the need to follow the crowd?  Recently, I have been reading a book entitled Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment by Anita Elberse, who talks about how people want to follow winners, whether it is the head of a record label pushing an artist to superstar status, to targeting a group of people to grow the popularity of said artist.  The goal and need of the label is to make this artist a winner and to gain followers and momentum within their career, because if they don’t, the artist is dropped and everyone fails, including the artist, the label, and the fans.

A big controversy when I was a teenagers in the late 90s to the early 00s was the battle of the two biggest boy bands in the world – N’SYNC and the Backstreet Boys.  You couldn’t like both.  Nope, you only had the option of liking one or other.  As a teenager I had a secret, which was the fact that I had albums of both bands, and yes I broke the rules.  Do you think I would have ever told my friends?  No way.  As I got older, and got more into the liner notes of the albums I bought, I realized that the  music was written by the same person!  So why couldn’t I like both bands when the music was not only written by the same person, but the same manager developed both groups too?  Another hater group when I was growing up was the group of kids into hip-hop.  The years of the popularity of the Wu-Tang Clan, the Beastie Boys, Diddy, the Fugees, and the starting of Eminem.  Basically, anyone who liked pop music was not in any kind of agreement on what constituted as good music.  Again, I had albums of both the Wu-Tang Clan and Beastie Boys and I can still recite every lyric to ‘Intergalactic.’  Finally, you have the group that is into alternative music, like Jimmy Eat World, Less Then Jake, Goldfinger, Radiohead, Oasis, and Fall Out Boy.  I’m sure you have started to see my pattern here, but this group was more opinionated then anyone.  If this group of teens found out you listened to pop music then they had more then a few words to make you feel degraded and question your own taste.

Like everyone, I had a big fear of what my friends thought of my choices from music to fashion, but why does it matter if the music you listen to is considered winners?  Can’t individuals like music because they like the song?  The voice of the artist?  The technique and the sound of the band?  Back in 2010, when I first heard of Ariana Grande, she was a reoccurring character on a show called Victorious, and everyone of my adult friends made fun of me for watching it since it was a kid’s show.  Now, the majority of them listen to her since she is a superstar.  Leading the trend is always better then following it.  So, sing those songs that get you dancing in the car, or better yet grab that hair bush as you are getting ready for work and become that pop star singing your favorite jam, because guilty pleasures never go out of style.

Love this song, Elizabeth Gillies, and Ariana Grande – circa 2010

Girl Power!

Posted in Bands & Music Artists by

If you haven’t noticed, I love to highlight women who have made a mark on society in music and dance.  There have been many women who have created a legacy, changed the world for future generations, and developed magic for others to experience everyday.  International Women’s Day was on March 8th, but in my opinion everyday is Women’s Day!

Pop music is one of my favorite music genres.  It has broken boundaries and changed over decades, but one thing that hasn’t changed is the harmonizing quality girl groups have incorporated into their sound.  Starting in the late 1930s when the Andrews Sisters changed the music scene and the up-and-coming popularity of girl groups began.  In 1955 was the year that girl groups started to grow.  In 1960-1966 over 750 girl groups charted songs in the United States and the United Kingdom.

While listening to girl groups over the decades, I came across a group called “The Chantels” which was formed in the 1950s.  No words can express how excited I was to find this group.  I have a weird obsession with my name that date backs to when I was a kid.  When you don’t have a common name, you can never find cool things with your name on them.  Having a younger brother who has the most common name to man I was jealous.  Anyways, this girl group was revolutionary since it was the second African American girl group to have success after the Bobbettes.  Their first song to hit the billboard charts was “He’s Gone,” but their most popular hit was “Maybe.”  Many of the girl groups such as the Chantels, the Bobbettes, the Shirelles, and the Marvelettes have that doo-wop groove including the harmonized vocals, the simple instrumentations, and those claps that help to keep the rhythm tied together.

Jumping a few decades to the 1990s through to today, girl groups still have a hold in popular music.  During the 90s the sound of girl groups changed.  TLC brought a contemporary R&B sound to groups.  The harmonies were still there, but the style had more of an edge.  After TLC, one of the top selling girl groups ever hit the scene, the Spice Girls.  The Spice Girls is not only embedded in my childhood, but they were the women who taught the 90s generation about girl power and how important friendship is to your life.  Emma, Victoria, Mel B., Mel C., and Geri created a huge fandom and their legacy still lives on in popularity as the best selling girl group ever.  Their mix of dance party type songs like ‘Wannabe’ and ‘Spice Up Your Life’ to their soft ballads ‘2 Become 1’ and ‘Say You’ll Be There’ resinated with the 90s generation connecting their music to life.  The girl groups continue through today with the up-and-coming group Fifth Harmony who have some of the most amazing voices together.  Their vocal range, projection power, and instrumental simplicity to highlight their voices is something exhibits true talent.

In the US, we rarely see artists from foreign speaking countries (besides EDM) in the general popular music scene, but girl groups are huge in Japan (J-Pop) and South Korea (K-Pop) and have hit the music scene hard in the late 2000s with some catchy dance club tunes which include artists Morning Musume, 2NE1, and Girl Generation.  These girl groups bring in techno sounds of EDM, the R&B edge and rap style that TLC had back in the 90s, and power vocals such as Fifth Harmony and Little Mix.  This sound is going to continue to blow up especially now that EDM is hitting the pop scene with artists like Zedd working with numerous female vocalists such as Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande.

Watch out One Direction, Rixton, and The Wanted the girls are coming for your music crown and I think they have the power to take over.  Click here for a list of girl groups that have affect the music scenes from the 1930s through today, and celebrate the power of women everyday.

*All date information found through wikipedia.

Should FM/AM Radio be Paying to Play Music?

Posted in Music Business by

Radio-mic-imageLegal and by the book mumbo jumbo has always resinated with me.  I like being in control, having the ability to plan for mistakes as well as having the time to fix them without being in emergency mode.  It drives me nuts when people don’t look at the long term affects when making decisions.  Thinking twenty to thirty years out when making a major decision is key to making that decision a smart one.  Will that decision always be successful?  Absolutely not, but at least you can see where and why it went wrong.

Recently, I was reading in Billboard Magazine that the government is in the process of making changes to the copyright laws for music.  One of the topics that are up for discussion is if FM/ AM radio stations should have to pay royalities to play music on the radio.  As I read this, I thought this could potentially bring in another revenue stream for the artists and record labels from the continuing declining music sales, but couldn’t it also hurt the artists and record companies long term?

Record labels and artists usually do some type of radio tour to promote music that they have coming out.  During those radio promotional tours the radio stations will be playing said music all week in preparation for the artist to be in the studio.  This not only promotes to listeners throughout the day to tune in on said day that the artist will be in the studio, but it gives the labels and artists a continuing roll of publicity throughout the week.  Will the radio station be charged for playing the artist’s music during the promotional week to gain listeners?  If the station is charged with a fee every time the artist’s song is played during that week what incentive does the radio station have to play their music instead of just doing a verbal promotional plug?  This could decrease the amount of air time artists could be receiving during a heavy promotional time when labels are pushing fans to buy tickets for tour dates.

The independent promotors (i.e. the indies) who are paid by the labels to get station managers to add particular artists to their playlists could increase their fees.  In turn the station mangers who make arrangements with the indies could request a higher annual sum to play said artists.  I know it’s illegal for stations to accept money to play music, but I’m talking about the promotional support the stations are given by the indies such as gift cards, give away money, and trips to utilize for game prizes on the station.

Finally, four companies own 62% of the top 40 market (according to musicbiz.com).  This could create more wide spread playlists so the radio stations wouldn’t half to pay as much in royalties to one artist or one label, which could create a greater chance for more artists to get radio play time.  This could change the top 40 game since radio is key factor in getting music heard by the general public.  I know what the generation Z is going to say “who listens to the radio when we have iPods, streaming, and YouTube?”  Those adults that sit in traffic going to work still listen to the radio, or the millennial generation who have their favorite talk show hosts that have introduced them to new music since the late 90s such as Ryan Seacrest and Elvis Duran.  What about people who listen to stations for the give aways?  Radio stations have power to get music heard around the world through promotional tools.

I think the royalties would be great as another revenue sources for the artists, but I also think it is a double edge sword.  It could cause increases in fees for not only the labels which in turn could affect what the artists actually receive, as well as increase fee requests from the indies and station managers.  What do you think?  Is this potential change a catch 22 for the artists and the labels, or is it a partial solution to the decreasing sale revenue?

 

Bringing Dance to Life On the Big Screen

Posted in Dance by

Like every sibling relationship, my younger brother and I have the ability to say something and know exactly what the other person is talking about.  Normally because it is a quote from a movie.  Anytime I watch a movie I always find something new that I didn’t see before whether it is a moment between characters that I missed, a line that is insanely funny that I didn’t connect to before, or a heart stopping quote that makes everything finally tie together.  Dancing in a movie can do that without saying one word.  Usually dancing in movies go hand in hand with it being some type of musical, unless it is specifically about dance like “Center Stage” or “Step Up,” but I am not talking about dance focused movies.  I want to talk about movies that have dance in them that make you feel something so powerful that you can’t help but fall in love with the story, the characters, and the inevitable plot twists that the director takes you on.

Over the last thirty years, dance sequences have popped up in movies periodically, but not consistently, which has to do with cost of the choreographer(s) and the dancers, the ability to find the right type of dancer(s)/ actor(s), and the various types of film shots that need to be taken when capturing a dance sequence so you can record the right type of emotion for the viewer.  Needless to say, you need a talented director and one that knows something about dance.  So what makes a movie a success?  Does dance in movies help to sell the film, or is it an added expense that not only increases the production budget but has a large potential to fail as a blockbuster?

Kenny Ortega is an American choreographer and director most notably known for his work on the ‘High School Musical’ trilogy and the 1992 film, ‘Newsies.’  He has a choreographic style that stands out from his strategic layout of group dances in songs such as ‘We’re All in This Together’ and ‘Seize the Day’ to his ability to choreograph for the camera by utilizing movements that are explosive such as chaînés leaps and pirouette extensions.  Ortega has a way of connecting his choreography with the storyline so it doesn’t seem like the dancing is coming out of no where mixing fantasy with reality through film shots and dance sequences.  For example, in High School Musical 3 during the song ‘Can I Have This Dance’ he blends the asking of a proposal to the prom that has the perfect theme of the waltz and as the two characters sing they waltz and partner throughout the roof of the school.  The director goes from quick feet views to full body circular movement of the camera to a high view of the characters during the partner lifts.  This gives the audience an inside view through each waltz to the emotions that the characters are feeling through a simple touch or a partner lift.  The High School Musical trilogy hit big after the first television release in 2006 so by the time HSM3 came out in 2008 Disney had the budget to do a theatrical production.  The fans pushed the popularity of this made for television story that skyrocketed the careers of the people who worked on these films from the actors such as Zac Eron to the choreographers Ortega, Bonnie Story, and Charles Klapow.  ‘Newsies’ didn’t have the greatest response when it first came out in 1992, but it has some great choreography in it.  For example, the song ‘King of New York’ where not only is there jazz, but also a mix of tap moves such as shuffles, scuffs, and toe hop barrels.  It’s rare to see two different styles mixed within one number.  Having a two drastically different types of dance styles in a number can create difficulty when searching for dancers who are trained in those styles; that is why as a dancer it is always good to be versatile.

I still haven’t figured out what makes a blockbuster hit movie.  I think it’s more like gambling.  Some film productions get a smaller marketing and production budget and then the fans blow up the popularity of it like with High School Musical, where other movies get a larger production budget but not enough marketing is done for it or it doesn’t resinate with the current generation that is being targeted such as ‘Newsies.’  Either way, movie studios bring on the dance because society is ready to be taken on a new ride that doesn’t always have to be capped superheroes and gore.