The income of DJ’s is exploding. In fact, Scotland’s Calvin Harris topped a Forbes list of the world’s highest paid DJs, earning $66 million that surpassed Hollywood actress Jennifer Lawrence.
“The rise of dance music has been astronomical… I happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Harris told Forbes.
Harris was followed by French DJ David Guetta ($37 million) while Dutch DJ Tiesto came in third with $36 million, while Americans Skrillex and Steve Aoki rounded out the Top 5, making $24 million apiece.
EDM is the fastest growing genre of music.
Los Angeles based pop band The Tide recently signed with The Vamps new record label under EMI Universal. The band began posting cover songs on YouTube such as ‘She Looks So Perfect’ by 5 Seconds of Summer and ‘Steal My Girl’ by One Direction and later on started performing their original songs on The Vamps World Tour 2015.
Ben McLane
Christina Aguilera Posts a topless selfie on Instagram. She stands in her bathroom wearing nothing but a pink undies and a fedora: ‘Just so you know with me, it’s all real, all the time.
‘Felt like it was time to start sharing some personal stuff with you guys… And it’s just the beginning. Night night. X’.
Of course the Voice is premiering on September 21st, 2015 & Christina wants to remind me you. Remember, no ratings, no show and what better way to attract an audience with a nude Instagram pic. But then again, this is normal for a former multiplatinum artist that hasn’t released a successful record in a long time. “Pop is a personality-driven market, after all, and the whims of the public can quickly turn empowerment into a personality problem” (Katherine St. Asaph)
Christina needs to stay relevant in the workplace just as an IT professional needs to upgrade his coding skills to keep his job. If an artist like Christina hasn’t had a song on the chart in quite some time, the need to stay relevant becomes even more important. As far as music, 20% of it is actually writing music. The need to garner attention from fans is top priority. Let’s not also forget that Christina needs to promote her role as a judge on NBC’s The Voice. The ratings start to tumble, which signs are showing they are, she will be the first to go.
Christina Aguilera is branding herself relevant by posting a semi-nude selfie on Instagram. Of course, using sex to sell things is about as old as advertising itself.
Lana Del Ray has successfully crafted her image as a retro 60’s songwriter that glorifies death, gloom, & suicide. Not bad for a millionaires daughter. We often her terms thrown around such as a manufactured & authentic. The manufactured artist is the creation by a machine such as a music company while authenticity is truthful in origin, not a copy, and genuine.
Is it possible to manufacture authenticity? Absolutely. “Starbucks decided to force/encourage their staff to request the names of customers when taking orders and then announce them when the drinks were ready. It was an attempt to manufacture authenticity — to artificially create the social bond that might naturally grow between a vendor and customer in a bygone era when local customers patronized local shops staffed by local employees where everybody was on a first name basis” (Kent Valentine)
“Pop artist Lana Del Rey has sold seven million copies of Born To Die Album. “Her rise to fame was flawless, in spite of constant probing about her authenticity, her penchant for being choked in her music videos and the strength of her voice.
“In 2010, she released one bland album under her own name, Lizzie Grant, before she wiped the slate clean, deleted her old material from iTunes and relaunched herself as a ‘gangsta Nancy Sinatra’ – a heartland bad girl in Daisy Duke shorts with a taste for bourbon and older men. Her music was cinematic, melancholic yet pretty catchy, propelled by 808 drumbeats and glossed with vintage Bond theme strings. She appeared a new cross-over force in pop: glamorous, artsy and ‘real’.
But when music hacks sniffed out her previous material, found out she was the daughter of a dot-com New York millionaire, clearly had major label backing, and, with one crushing Saturday Night Live performance, realised she was seemingly incapable of carrying a tune outside of the recording booth, they smelt a rat.
Del Rey went from blogosphere darling to heretic in a matter of weeks, her rise recast as a rouse to lure hapless musos into liking another manufactured pop princess. But does any of that really matter? From Motown to Madonna, some of the best pop music has been made by committee. And some of the greatest pop icons have built their legends on complete lies. Bob Dylan used to claim he ran away from the circus – he, in fact, dropped out of college. No one believed for a second that Michael Jackson really was ‘bad’. Whether or not Del Rey really did ride around in the back of an Al Camino with drug dealers is beside the point.” (Tom Slater)
Not living up to the hype is the biggest risk when manufacturing authenticity & of course you will always loose to authenticity.
Anyhow, if you attend to manufacture authenticity, these key points are worth considering:
Record contracts are just like — I’m gonna say the word – slavery,” Prince said, according to NPR. “I would tell any young artist … don’t sign.”
“Once we have our own resources, we can provide what we need for ourselves,” Prince said. “Jay Z spent $100 million of his own money to build his own service. We have to show support for artists who are trying to own things for themselves.”
Although record contracts benefit the music label, they can still benefit the artist when it comes to mass exposure. In fact, Prince spent the majority of his career signed to a music label that released his music worldwide.
Today, an artist can release their music without a major record label and garner thousands of fans, and under the right circumstances, millions through social media.
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