Drawn and Designed by MollyClarissa

My dissertation focuses on the impact Web 2.0 has had upon music promotion. Centering around how the diversification of the modern internet has affected grassroots musicians in relation to their Ownership, Authenticity, Accessibility and Products. The overall findings of dissertation one concluded that although grassroots artists have a variety of ways in which to promote their music, selling out to a label is the best way to be successful. Musicians being unable to ‘break through’ or gain higher recognition without selling out is an issue within the industry. Many consider adopting mainstream trends to be the only way to gain fame. My proposal is to work closely with unsigned musicians to provide a foundation of branding and promotion. Enabling artists to have full control of what they produce but provide high quality promotional material which enables a notability within their audience without threatening the artist’s key ideals. I have taken reference from academics such as Marshall that state “financial success depends upon scale and catalogue”, this directly relates to ownership (Marshall, L. 2015. P.186). Many labels provide scale and catalogue through quality and consistency. Throughout this project I aim to provide this service while remaining within the moral boundaries artists set themselves. Other academics affirm that “unsigned musicians… decide what might constitute an artistically and/or commercially satisfactory recording”, unlike that of labels who often stipulate that signed musicians provided ‘commercially satisfactory recordings’ (Klein, B. Meier, LM and Powers, D. 2017. P.7). 

 

I created an online campaign for musician Oscar Merry, beginning by recording his wishes for the promotional material; working together to establish a branding direction based upon genre and authenticity. We collaborated on multiple projects, sharing ownership of photoshoots and merchandise designs, maintaining a cohesive theme throughout his campaign. In my industry research Louis Gauthier states, “It’s a great and easy tool to promote your music and create content. The difficulty is thinking outside the box.” I wanted to introduce methods that may not have been explored by Oscar. The object of this promotion was to catch the attention of new audiences whilst staying true to my client’s authenticity. We did this through colour, a chalk blue tone. I identified ways in which we could link this throughout the campaign, as seen by his website, merchandise and promotional imagery. I helped Oscar create social media posts which would give him a closer relationship to his audience: live videos, instagram polls and previews of unreleased tracks. When reflecting on the campaign thus far, Oscar deemed it a success stating "it's not like you’re from a big corporation… it’s not about this sells so we're going to do that, you've been good at being like 'you want to do that, so lets make it sell ', which I think is the best way to do it." 

 

My next step is repeating the previous process with different musicians. I can hopefully track a trend of improvements in terms of their online presence and reach. Following successful results, my aim would be to produce a supply to the demand that many up and coming musicians have. In regard to intellectual property; the main issue my artefact is likely to face. It would be easy to produce and sign a co-ownership document with the artist to avoid any claims of theft.

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References-

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Klein, B. Meier, LM and Powers, D. (2017) Selling Out: Musicians, Autonomy, and Compromise in the Digital Age. Leeds: University of Leeds Press. Available at: https://library.bathspa.ac.uk/items/eds/aph/123312154 (Accessed: 14/05/20)

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Marshall, L. (2015) ‘Let’s keep music special. F-Spotify’: on-demand streaming and the controversy over artist royalties’, Creative Industries Journal, 8(2): 177-190

Available at: https://library.bathspa.ac.uk/items/eds/bth/127873367 (Accessed: 14/05/20)

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