Theory Applied to Bjorks Music Videos

 

Industry

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POST CONTENTS:

- Big 3 and Globalistaion

- Industry Format Sales 

- BBFC and Music Video Age Ratings

- Product Placement in Music Video

- UGC

• Revenue peak (1999)
• Digital sales became the new norm
• Generation raised on free music mentality
• Streaming accounts for more than half of music industry revenues
• Monetizing music, and how you can do it
• K-pop fans rally in favor of the BLM movement

BIG 3 + GLOBALIZATION:

Big 3:

In the music industry there are 3 major companies that dominate mainstream global distribution, they are collectively referred to as the Big 3 (or WUS), they are Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. 

Due to the internet and the recent increase in globalisation, it has become easier than ever to distribute music to a global market. Due to convergence and web 2.0, in theory this would not only mean that now the consumer or the average person now has the means to distribute and create their own music videos, but can also compete with the big 3. This however does not seem to be the case.

Although the internet has made it possible for anyone to self-distribute their music, record sales are no longer a viable stream of income. So artists now more than ever rely on sales of merch, live shows and marketing/branding. Because of this the big 3 have been able to keep their stranglehold on the distribution of music. According to this article by "The Atlantic" which said that from 1982 to 2003 the top 1% of earners have doubled their income. 

Graph taken form "The Atlantic" article

Here is a pie chart detailing the market shares of the big 3 and independent distributors from 2020 taken from statista.com:

Globalisation and technology has given these labels access to the best musicians, producers, music video directors and marketing managers across the globe. It is an undeniable fact that independent labels cannot compete with the financial incentives offered by the big 3.

Indie:

However the main alternatives to the Big 3 are the smaller indie lables. Usually these lables might handle the production of music (paying for studio time for example) and usually have a distribution deal with one of the big 3 for global distribution or access to platforms like Spotify.

For example the artist we have chosen for our coursework, Björk is signed to both one little independent records (OLI) as well as UMG (Universal Music Group). This could be because as previously mentioned OLI could be responsible for producing her records while UMG allows her global distribution. However it is more likely OLI is responsible for UK distribution of her records as they are the leading distributors in the UK and UMG is responsible for her US distribution as they have a strong foothold in that market.

INDUSTRY FORMAT SALES/REVENUES:

REVEBUE PEAK 1999:

Revenues in the music industry famously peaked in 1999. This was largely due to the disruption of the industries main form of distribution (physical CD and Vinyl sales). The main cause of this disruption was the advent of the internet and convergence culture. Because the internet was becoming more and more accessible the industry saw a shift to digital forms of distribution.

DIGITAL SALES BECAME THE NEW NORM:

During the shift from analog to digital distribution, the industry saw a rise in digital sales of music, although some platforms saw success with this method, notably iTunes, apples music player still asks users to pay a fee to download their albums and remains comparatively profitable. 

However due to the nature of digital distribution, piracy of music was made incredibly easy and paying for music downloads was becoming less and less justifiable for consumers. As mentioned previously the file sharing capabilities of the internet was a big contributor to the decline in music industry revenues. 

Consumers showed they were no longer willing to pay a premium price for a CD with things like piracy.

As seen here CD sales peaked in the year 2000 and have been on a steady decline ever since. The music industry then tried 

 They were promptly replaced with streaming services like youtube or spotify. This meant that streams of revenue also changed.

For example the streaming service spotify asks listeners to pay a monthly subscription fee for Spotify premium. The revenue is then divided amongst artists, people who had more plays get a higher percentage of the revenue.

(I used this calculator to estimate how much money Bjork could be making)

Another stream of revenue is youtube ads. If you upload your music video onto youtube you can chose to run ads on it, the revenue generated from these ads is split between youtube and the artist.

Although these are valid revenue streams, they still do not compare to the revenues of physical sales. 

However it is worth mentioning that there is still demand for some forms of physical music, most notably vinyls. According to this article vinyl sales increased 30% in 2020 and have now surpassed CD sales. This is likely because vinyl still remains the highest quality music format. However the industry is still dominated by streaming which makes up 83% of the revenue while physical sales make up about 9%.

STREAMING VS TOURING:

source

source

In recent years since the decline of physical sales, the primary streams of music industry revenue has shifted to touring and merch sales. Here I look at Ed Sheeran the 2nd most streamed artist on Spotify. In the graphs above we can see that Ed Sheerans ticket sales alone dwarf his physical/streaming revenue. This is likely due to convergence, as the means to distribute your music to an international audience have become accessible to most people.

A good example of this is the digital service Distro Kid, which allows for anybody to release their music on all major streaming platforms like Spotify (which isnt usually accessible to anyone).

source

This makes things like marketing and branding (distribution) more important as these things will directly translate to ticket and merch sales. This again gives distributors more power as they have the resources to run elaborate and wide reaching marketing campaigns for their artists. 

For example, The Weeknd who is signed to Republic Records which is a subsidiary of UMG, a big 3 conglomerate. He has also been featured multiple times on the billboards at Times Square in New York which is not something that is accessible to most indie distributors. 

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/24/taylor-swift-blow-fellow-artists-streaming-revenues-soar-universal-spotify?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

UNIVERSAL FURTHERS ITS STRANGLEHOLD ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY:

BBFC MUSIC VIDEO AGE RATINGS: 

The BBFC have started giving music videos age ratings. This could mean some of the biases seen in the film industry (with films distributed by big 5 receiving lower age ratings for what would be seen as inappropriate content) may be carried over to the music industry. This rule applies specifically to any song distributed by a British label 

According to the BBFC this move was to protect children from potentially harmful content by "helping parents and children chose the most appropriate music videos" 

Dizee Rascals "Couple of Sack" music video is the first music video to have received an 18+ rating.

PIRACY AND THE RISE OF FREE MUSIC:

In the year 2000 music industry revenue peaked. Since then music industry revenues have  been on the decline. The main disruptor was napster, originally a file sharing service which was used to share music on an international scale. This was originally considered piracy, but since then downloads and streaming has become the industry standard. 

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/feb/24/napster-music-free-file-sharing 

https://qz.com/660141/yes-music-sales-are-growing-again-but-they-are-still-half-of-what-they-were-in-1999/

PRODUCT PLACEMENT MAKING ITS WAY INTO MUSIC VIDEOS:

In recent times I have noticed some music videos feature shots that contain branded products. This has lead me to bleieve that much like in film, music videos are beginning to feature product placements. This could be a response to the falling music industry revenues as this provides an alternative stream of income.

For example J Balvin and Skrillexes song "In Da Ghetto" features multiple shots seemingly advertising the banking service/credit card company "Current"

  

Another example of this is Doja Cats "Woman" in which she is seen wearing beats earphones.

Ive noticed that it is mostly larger artists that feature product placement in their videos. This links into the idea that artists are now becoming more like social media influencers as especially with these examples alot of younger people look up to them, which probably makes it easier to secure a product placement deal.  

UGC:

Likely due to the rise of streaming and the development of Web 2.0, it has been increasingly common to find UGC or user generated content. This has become a new way in which fans can engage with artists and subsequently has begun to replace the old media model, where consumers where mostly passive. 

Some labels have gone as far as to encourage UGC, Billie Eilish famously launched a campaign where her fans could submit covers of her hit single "Bad Guy" and a software would generate a video mashup of randomly selected covers. 

(here is the site)

A more extreme example of of this phenomenon is when the band Depeche Mode let fans run their facebook page while they were on tour.

Through this page on their website, fans could be randomly selected to run the 

 

  

K-POP FANS RALLY IN FAVOUR OF THE BLM MOVMENT:

A fancam is typically referred to as a fandoms obsessive and single minded focus on what they find entertaining. This links into hebdiges sub-cultrue as most of thes fans are members of the k-pop subculture, connoted by their use of words like "stan" or "bias". The use of these words or the dedication to this culture (buying merch, going to shows, etc...) is then rewarded with cultural capital (Beaudrieu). These fancams will spam (the sending of multiple unsolicited messages) threads that contain images of their favorite k-pop groups.

During the Black Lives Matter protests the police put out a tweet (post on twitter) asking people to submit videos of people or talk about people being unlawful. After a viral tweet was out out by a respected member of the k-pop community.

  This in turn led to numerous fancams spamming the account with k-pop related content as it was believed the police would use the submitted information to harm protestors. They then flooded the app that these requests were being submitted through making it effectively unusable for a short period of time.

This then sparked a wider culture of aiding in similar protests for the k-pop fandom.

Audience

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PRIMARY AUDIENCE:

• Age: 14 - 24
• Gender: Male and Female
• Economic Grouping: BC1C2
• Sexuality: Heterosexual

SECONDARY AUDIENCE:

• Age: 24 - 44+
• Gender: Male and Female
• Economic Grouping: BC1C2
• Sexuality: Heterosexual

AUDIENCE THEORIES:

- passive/active audience

- hypodermic syringe

- Uses and gratification (personal identification, intertextuality - audience pleasures)

• Diversion (escapism)
• Personal Relationships
• Personal Identity or Individual Psychology
• Surveillance 

Richard Dyer Star System: 

Dyer argued that stars or the featuring of stars in media texts are central to how we perceive or read that text. One of  the first questions asked by producers (especially in film) is "whos the star", in the case of music videos it would usually be the artist. He argued that audiences will simultaneously consume a stars perceived personality and the narrative.  

Bjork Audiences: 

Bjork has made it pretty clear that her brand and music has fairly universal appeal. This is because her colorful brand image and pop musical influence generally appeals to a younger tween audience. However the more classical/experimental aspects of her music and her appearances on late night shows (for example she appears on David Lettermans "late night show")

Fanbase Not Audience: 

Thanks to Web 2.0 the old producer/consumer (or one way flow of media) model has become outdated. Some even say the term audience itself is outdated, as it implies a certain level of passivity (audience hevily implies an observer of some kind, modern "audiences" have demonstrated they are more than that) with the term fanbase is more appropriate. This links into an industry point which proposes that UGC helps companies revenue rather than cannibalising their revenue streams.   

OUR TARGET AUDIENCE:

Our primary target audience is young men women, ages 14 - 24. However our secondary audience is tweens, both genders (4 - 13) and more mature people, again both genders (24 - 44+). Before we thought our primary audience was mainly teen girls aged 13 - 19, however through research we found bjork had much wider appeal.

We are hoping to cast a younger teen woman as the artist, this is because this generates personal identification amongst younger audiences and more mature audiences (as they were a teen once, they can relate to what its like). However we also plan to queer gender norms (having our protagonist act in a stereotypically masculine way) and narrative stereotypes (by straying away from Todorovs/Campells narrative models) which could dissuade identification from our secondary audience of partially more mature people. Similarly the darker elements we plan to include (it is implied Snow White poisons the queen) that this lessens appeal to our "tween" secondary audience. However the colorfull and fun elements could still appeal to a younger audience while the intertextuality and darker themes could appeal to an older audience. 

Snow White is also a widely recognised franchise that has appeal across all ages (more mature audiences will have watched during their childhood). It is most commonly associated with Disney (a big 5 conglomerate) whos brand image is largely "kid friendly" again generating appeal from child (8 -12) and potentially youth (15 -24) audiences who might resonate with the queering as it could be seen as rebellious. We also benefit from the mass marketing done by Disney of its franchises.  

Demographic (gender) of Bjork's followers on instagram:

Here you can see that Bjorks audience is fairly evenly split. This is uncommon for artists in the current state of the industry largley due to the "artists as influencers" model that is becoming the new norm (this refers to the way most artists have had to become influencers in order to promote their music and engage with their audiences, meaning were seeing more and more artists mimic influencer behaviors, see examples of this behavior on my social media research post). This is quite typical of pop artists as they usually go for broad appeal, for example Billie Eilish and Tion Wayne 

Tion Wayne Instagram Audience demographic:

Billie Eilish: (61% female audience)

Kesha Fan Page Demographic:

Male Appeal:

Bjork has also been seen to have significant male appeal as seen by the comments sexualizing her left on her social medias.

QUESTIONAIRE:

We put together a questionnaire which we gave to parents and classmates to help decide our target audience.

The questionaire:

RESULTS:

78% or young (14 - 24) men and women said they listen to pop and electro pop.

34% of male and female adults (24 - 44+) said they had heard of bjork

84% of male and female tw(e)ns (4 - 13) said they liked electro pop and pop

The genre and chosen artist

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In This Post:

• Initial Pitch
• Bjork performance look
• Artist research

INITIAL PITCH:

We ended up chosing Bjork as we found that her videos play with conventions alot more which would make it funner and allow us to be more creative with the concept and representations, furthermore unlike Dua Lipa male gaze is not a part of Bjorks brand and is almost never used in her videos, this means we have more options for casting and we dont risk actors feeling uncomfortable.

BJORK PERFORMANCE LOOK:

Presentation looking at key signifiers that make up her overall brand. This helps with planning mise-en-scene and can be shown to actors so they have a detailed guide to help re-create her look.

Artist Research:

This is a vodcast I created detailing my research about Bjork. This includes her history, her discography, her charting history and genre.

Progress Podcasts

(Vodcast Playlist)

To keep us updated about where we are at with different schedules and stages of our coursework, we are filming vodcasts in intervals to also monitor our progress.

Vodcast 1:The basic idea.

Vodcast 2: Expanding on our narrative & organising cast/crew.

Vodcast 3: Narrative & organising production/shooting dates.

Vodcast 4: Final Narrative.

Vodcast 5: Rough Cut and Vfx Experimentation

Conventions/influences: website/social media

 In This Post:

• TikTok Research 
• Instagram Research
• Twitter Research

TICTOC SOCIAL MEDIA RESEARCH: (Chris)

Bjork currently does not have a TikTok account.

Here are some of the platforms conventions I have Identified:

INSTAGRAM RESEARCH: (Chris)

key conventions:

• Direct address
• Use of emojis
• Hashtags
• live show promotion posts
• BTS/Privileged access posts

Twitter convention research (Alex)

Björk has a black profile picture and banner, where we found out after some research that she did this to support the movement which creates awareness of "what the world might look like without women". We applied a close-up of the artist as our profile picture for our social media as we found out that this was the most conventional.

To be inspired for our own Twitter account, we took a look at Björk's twitter style and layout. We found out that she uses a primarily straightforward format, where her posts are laid out very clearly, and by naming everyone involved clearly - while including some illustration.

Conventions/influences: digipak

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In This Post:

• Digipack Conventions
• BMTH Countertypical Digipack example
• Bjork Digipack research

DIGIPACK CONVENTIONS:

I created a vodcast showing the conventions I have identified through research. I looked at a range of modern and older songs and artists.

Key Conventions:

• Artist name and logo on the front (most prominent text on the front pannel)
• Metalica and Prince´s "Black Albums" play with this convention as they dont feature an album title or artist name
• Album title featured on the front, usually the second most prominent text element
• Beatles love challenges this convention
• 
  
• Dvd or bonus details on the front 
• Bonus cd details on the back

• Numbered list of tracks featured on the back
• Almost always a direct link between front and back panels 
• Flow with inner pannels, outer panel theme is sometimes continued on the inside
• The small prints, not just on the rear external panel, can also be in front/bonus features sticker/spine/inside
• Logos, URLS or social media, logos of record label/distribution company/cd retailer/tech or dvd company logos, social media or URLs often go to artists or fan clubs or merch stores 
• The spine: catalog number, artist/album title 
• Editions/Extras, eg lyric booklet 

BMTH - AMO pre orders, sold in a plastic ziplock bag:

The imagery tied to the album was a cd in a ziplock bag, makes sense to sell it like that. Very unconventional as it doesn't have front or back panels and isn't sold in typical cd packaging, however it still has a booklet and bonus info sticker.

This is a very creative and effective way to sell a cd as this helps it stand out. This is crucial in this day and age (mainly due to the rise of streaming and web 2.0) as CD sales are on the decline. This product/digi pack can also be marketed as a collectible item for fans as well as a CD, this generates extra interest from people from a market outstide the CD niche.  

BJORK:

Presentations looking at conventions identified with Bjork digipack releases.

 

Conventions/influences: video

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In This Post:

• General conventions research Vodcast
• Student video ideas
• Commercial music video ideas
• Conventions class notes
• Electro pop conventions
• Bjork conventions Vodcast
• Conventions/Key influences

General Conventions Research Vodcast:

These vodcasts detail conventions I have identified in the music video format. I talk primarily about Goodwins music video conventions.

Student Video Ideas Vodcast:

In this vodcast we observe previous student examples to try find inspiration or new ideas for our own packadge.

Commercial Music video Ideas:

Disclosure - My High:

• Narrative follows one guy
• Protagonist (which could be the artist is taken places by others as he is incapable of moving on his own

Stalker horror film plot but stalker is dancing while staring blankly into the camera

CONVENTIONS CLASS NOTES:

ELECTRO POP CONVENTIONS:

Signifiers that are typically found in electro pop music videos that we plan to implement to add to the verisimilitude of our simulacrum.

notes:

BJORK ARTISTS CONVENTIONS:

CONVENTIONS SUMMARY/KEY INFLUENCES:

Another video detailing conventions and how we plan to apply them to our own coursework.

Backgrounds

 

CANDY FOREST:

We were inspired by this video (video done by Apple to demonstrate their new iPhone 13) to incorporate a candy forest in our music video as we found it was very visually striking and fit with the overall imagery associated with our chosen artist (Bjork) and fit quite well into the genre, that being electro pop (this is mainly due to the large variety in colors).

SAMPLE PICTURES OF OUR CANDY FOREST:

HOW WE DID IT:

CANDY FORREST V2:

unfortunately due to the fact that the previous forest was made of some organic materials, after a day the set was no longer usable. So instead we contacted our friend Eduardo who is proficient with the 3d animation and modeling software blender to see if it would be possible to create a 3d forest. We then created one with him.

How It Was Done:Behind The Scenes:

DRAWN BACKGROUNDS:

TEXT BACKGROUNDS:

In the final cut we decided to include some changing text like in a video we looked at for Anna by MAD FOX.

Heres the video:

Heres our version:

Heres a tutorial I followed to achieve this effect: