Rough Trade Case Study Goodies

New Technology

View more Microsoft Word documents from Rob Mcminn.

In this part of the exam you MUST show evidence of having researched a specific record label (Rough Trade) in the CONTEMPORARY MUSIC INDUSTRY that TARGETS A BRITISH AUDIENCE focusing on its PRODUCTION,DISTRIBUTION, EXHIBITION AND CONSUMPTION BY AUDIENCES. YOU NEED TO  BE ABLE TO EXPLORE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ROUGH TRADE, THEIR FANBASE/AUDIENCE AND WIDER MUSIC INDUSTRY ISSUES/PRESSURES/TENSIONS (Majors V Indies; NMT; Piracy; commercial forces; changing hegemonic values; economy):

"While the division between the majors and the independents increasingly dissolves, particularly at the level of distribution, the independent label remains significant as innovator and instigator. It retains its status and pedagogic function in teaching an audience about new sounds and developing aural literacies."

"Rough Trade was instrumental in imbuing a spirit of cooperation and a benign mode of competition. A shift in the distribution of records and associated merchandizing to strengthen product association—such as magazines, fanzines and T-Shirts—enabled Rough Trade to deal directly with pivotal stores and outlets and then later establish cartels with stores to provide market security and a workable infrastructure. Links were built with ancillary agents such as concert promoters, press, booking agents, record producers and sleeve designers, to create a national, then European and international, network to produce an (under the counter) culture. Such methods can also be traced in the history of Postcard Records from Edinburgh, Zoo Records from Liverpool, Warp in Sheffield, Pork Recordings in Hull, Hospital Records in London, and both Grand Central and Factory in Manchester. From the ashes of the post-1976 punk blitzkrieg, independent labels bloomed with varying impact, effect and success, but they held an economic and political agenda. The desire was to create a strong brand identity by forming a tight collaboration between artists and distributors. Perceptions of a label’s size and significance was enhanced and enlarged through this collaborative relationship."
http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0605/13-brabazonmallinder.php

'It's about bringing music to people's attention which they've probably never heard before...music shouldn't have boundaries...it's just language, that everyone can identify with. That's the most valuable thing in music today. We're living in that time when things have got to unite..Talvin Singh

Britpop

View more OpenOffice presentations from john1306.

Rough Trade Homepage

http://www.roughtraderecords.com/

The Guardian 'Music Blog' : Rough Trade Article

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/03/26/roughtrade460.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2007/mar/26/canroughtradesnewrecordsh&usg=__1jgsRs4-KFsLIzk4jn4U0LPvPqQ=&h=300&w=460&sz=46&hl=en&start=2&sig2=uHvsF3Y4-ZRkC75fHRqMcw&um=1&tbnid=B-L4wnWLVa_eBM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Droughtrade%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=RE8cSuGwCMTN-AbglPjXDg

Understanding Record Labels - Majors and Indies

Team media are aware that there is an air of panic about the A/S Media Section B Case Study on Record Labels. I am spending much of this weekend sourcing goodies and planning resources to help you better understand the macro (Big Picture) of the music industry and how to link your micro (case study) to form a debate. I have found a gem of a site that has some great industry interviews that can be found by acccessing the following link. Once in, they are on the left hand side: 

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/articles/majors+vs+indies?link=video%2Flashoot%2Foh_majorindie.flv

http://www.artistshousemusic.org/videos/the+role+of+major+labels+in+today+s+industry+and+is+a+major+deal+right+for+you

The Stills: Indie Label vs. Major Label.

An excellent report/essay exploring the industry:

http://hs.riverdale.k12.or.us/~hfinnert/exhib_06/davidp/exhibition.pdf

TASK:
Read the following articles in Rolling Stone Magazine and The Times, and undertake a SWOT Analysis of the current music industry: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/15137581/the_record_industrys_decline

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article2602597.ece

Mac- Some thoughts on the music industry:
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/

8 Key Trends for the next 5 Years:

http://www.futureofmusicbook.com/

My Space, Arctic Monkeys and Contemporary Trends in Music Consumption

Patrick Goldstein, writing in Sunday’s LA Times suggests that our elite, top-down culture is now being supplanted by a “raucous, participatory bottom-up culture in which amateur entertainment has more appeal than critically
endorsed skill and expertise”. “The era”, he says, “when studios, networks and record companies were tastemakers is long gone. Ask kids today where good music comes from and they’ll say iTunes or Myspace.com, not Warner Music. The best brands are being built from the bottom up”. Goldstein’s view is echoed by Rupert Murdoch, who last year paid $580 million for the MySpace.com site, saying “Young people don’t want to rely on a Godlike figure from above to tell them what’s
important…They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it”.

Like it or not, MySpace is a promotional tool that musicians, especially unsigned bands cannot ignore. Today’s band must be web-savvy and must be on MySpace. As a multimedia-rich environment, bands have unparalleled access to their fans on both a social and musical level.

Prior to the Internet and MySpace music promotion was sketchy at best and was all about connections, fitting into an industry “mold”, luck, and more connections. It was often left up to the chance of being in the right place at the right time. It was an old boys’ network and the chances of an unsigned band breaking out and getting noticed were all up to politics, insider connections and chance. With the exploding popularity of MySpace music promotion, the power has shifted to the fans and the rewards are going to the bands who know the best way to reach their fans. Never before has there been a better chance for unsigned bands to get distribution for their music and to promote your unsigned band.

MySpace has given music fans the biggest coup, by literally giving them the power to choose and the voice to express that choice in a way that the music industry establishment and musicians cannot ignore. This gives indie bands and unsigned bands a tremendous advantage they have never had before.

Despite noise and griping about how crowded MySpace is with people trying to promote their unsigned bands, spamming other MySpacers with friend requests and using all kinds of software to make them appear more popular than they really are, at the end of the day, MySpace music promotion is the best thing to happen to independent artists since Napster. There is no question that MySpace and MySpace music promotion is the best unsigned band resource available today.

MySpace music promotion has changed the game and in doing do has put a damper on many of the traditional methods to promote your unsigned band. The old way to promote an unsigned band involved using posters, fliers, playing the local club scene and hoping to get discovered by an industry suit.

MySpace has completely revolutionized music promotion in these ways:

• Allowing unsigned bands to reach an audience they never could before.
  
• Allowing unsigned bands a global opportunity to sell their music and promote their music directly to their fans.
  
• Giving unsigned bands access to a global fan base.
  
• By allowing unsigned bands to connect with other bands and musicians to create a strong network.
  
• By allowing unsigned bands the ability to reach out and touch their fans (and let them touch back) in a highly personal way that has never been available before.
  
• This ability to reach out and touch their fans and let them touch back is probably the biggest advantage unsigned and indie bands can gain from MySpace music promotion. It may be a huge network, and the competition may seem fierce, but MySpace music promotion, when done right and consistently, gives bands the best advantage in the history of the music industry. When an unsigned band can create a global fan base with a grassroots effort and cut out the middle man, chances of getting noticed by the suits and getting signed by a label are no longer left to luck, chance, connections or politics. Thanks to MySpace, it is all about the fans and all about the music.
  
  Arctic Monkeys Case Study
• http://www.myspaceshowdown.com/blog/making-it-myspace-case-study-arctic-monkeys.html
  
• http://www.arcticmonkeys.com/
  
• http://www.facebook.com/pages/Arctic-Monkeys/9520450966
  
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/jan/30/arts.artsnews
  
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/5391258.stm
  
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/oct/25/popandrock.arcticmonkeys
  

KEY WORDS / VOCABULARY:

AUDIENCE, INSTITUTION, FANBASE, PERSONALISATION, INTERACTIVITY, CONVERGENCE, PROLIFERATION, MOBILITY, PLATFORMS, SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP,