Blog post 2: The role of the internet in the music industry

The internet allows fans to interact with artists and enables artists to create star personas through branding and synergy across all digital platforms. The internet also meant piracy was more accessible, regulations and laws came into effect to stop this but as one site was taken down another was put up. This means artists had sell themselves as well as their music in order to increase revenue. For example they used more attractive album covers which, sold themselves as an artist which made people want to support them instead of pirating and increased tour prices. Sense of connection created with artist which has created cult followings, fandoms and fans that work themselves to promote your music.  

This shift in marketing means more interactive content was produced and people wanted to feel like they understood and knew the artist. Due to the huge number of artists on the market, that are easily accessible online, there is a huge competition and so artists need a unique selling point or be able to grab your attention with content or charisma in content such as interviews. The converged nature of the internet also means that people expect convergence and so my website, video and social media will all be converged.

Examples of this:

On Selena Gomez website- has pictures you can use as banners/ posts on your social media. Gets fans who love the music to promote the music. Fans feel part of a community when they use it 

An example of fans going the extra mile to get streams for their artist- one of Lady Gaga's 'Monsters' (fan) made a fake partnership advert that ended up trending, just so people would stream Gaga's new Star Is Born song.

The internet also plays a role in producing and distribution of products and content. The internet hugely changed the industry as you could now stream songs and meant that you didn't have to be signed to a label for people to hear your music as you could produce and release it yourself..

My Case Study

The internet has also changed how we listen to music. People used to buy physical copies of the music such as CDs or even cassettes and vinyl's which moved to downloading music and then streaming. 

This means that is is vital that our pop artist have a voice on streaming platforms such as Spotify and apple music so that they can continue to gain success while this new trend grows. Also in order to make profit they must be accessible. So on the website I will need to link both social media platforms and streaming services.

My research has been useful as it has showed me how modern day pop artists use the internet to their advantage in order to sell themselves, as well as their music. My main takeaways are that my platforms and website need to be synergised, be linked to each other to create digital convergence and have additional content that appeals. I need to do all this to attract a large audience online and make my fans feel like they are connected to the artist and most importantly, that a strong cross- platform brand identity is created.