|
|
mtvU Student Voice Contest
 Recently mtvU and Billboard Magazine scoured the country for music-obsessed students with the passion to represent their generation in print. We narrowed the pool down to 5 finalists. We asked the five finalists this question: Tell us everything wrong with the way music is being marketed to you. and published the best response in this week's Billboard Magazine. You can find all the responses below:
Top 5 Finalist
This Month's Winner Finalist 2 Finalist 3 Finalist 4 Finalist 5
PATRICK HARRIS
University of Rochester
Major: Art History, Media Studies, Music
Tell us everything wrong with the way music is being marketed to you.
Musicians have thrived on the patronage of young listeners attending concerts, buying CDs and collecting memorabilia. Music marketing has adapted to this market and evolved with record labels to appeal to the cookie cuter listener through mediums such as MTV, hit music stations and other popular media conglomerates. Most record labels aim and select the target market that consists of teenagers that don't know very much about music. While artists and producers can create catchy melodies that can be danced to, it is harder to create music that actually means something. The top forty artists reflect this trend, creating a hit of blinged out mega-star rappers and pop bands that have pulled the music industry through low CD sales over to the digital era. While this marketing scheme has been incredibly successful, launching careers for hundreds of artists, the music industries marketing departments need to realize that there are listeners who want to hear music with substance and not just repetitive corruption.
Marketing departments carefully manipulate and control the image of their artists. They create powerful images that thousands read about, admire, and seek to emulate. Unfortunately, marketers are responsible for shaping the image of the artists who are promoting violence, degradation toward women, drugs and alcohol. Music can be a powerful tool if used right, and can create wholesome ideas that can benefit the record label, artists and customer. Marketers sometimes forget that the listener is the one buying the CD, and they ultimately control the image of the artist. The challenge to marketers is to bring substance into their pitch, rather then commercialize the artist by playing off of popular but culturally damaging trends. While marketers bombard young audiences with endless ads, demos, annoying pop ups and billboards, it is important to realize that the consumer cares about quality, which inevitably will reflect back on the artist and label.
---------------
BENJAMIN BRAUN
Quincy University
Major: Music Productions
Tell us everything wrong with the way music is being marketed to you.
Musically speaking, I don't exactly personify the stereotypical college student. I'm not clinging to the bubble gum world of over-developed tween idols that managed to somehow escape the late 90's pop fa?ade in one piece. I'm not submerged in the three-chord punk/emo/pop world of adolescent pseudo-angst. I'm certainly not a part of the anti-sellout, underground, indie-rock revolution who are afraid to turn on the radio once in a while. And I hate rap.
Yet, even from a non-conformist standpoint, I must object to the way music is being marketed to me. I'd rather not get into the farcical establishment of image. Like it or not, image is out there. And frankly, ever since the Backstreet Boys' heyday, any and all objections to the idea have been considerably overplayed. Get over it.
In contrast, I suppose my primary objection to the way music is marketed is the blinding similarities with many of today's "hottest" acts. Take the current fad of the John Mayer-esque singer/songwriter genre for example. The concept is simple; once some random "Your Body is A Wonderland" heartthrob with an acoustic guitar reaches mainstream success, gluttonous record companies frantically start signing everybody they can find that looks or sounds like said artist (talent, as always, is optional). Before we as the public know it, we are being run over with a truckload of quasi-melodic, hook-based tracks that sound strikingly similar to one another. And lets be honest, it's the singles we're after anyway. Now thanks to I-Tunes and other file sharing systems-both legal and illegal-there's really no reason for broke college students like myself to buy the whole CD anymore. Inevitably, our I-Pods become diluted with 30 gigs of the same garbage and we're left unable to differentiate between the Jack Johnsons and Teddy Geigers of the world. Rendered powerless by the mainstream media, we're forced to listen to Dave Matthews, surf Myspace.com and anxiously await music execs to spoon-feed us "the next big thing".
Thank you, and if you have any questions, I'll be in my room... listening to "Grey Street".
---------------
ANDREW HAYWARD
Lewis University
Major: Print Journalism
Tell us everything wrong with the way music is being marketed to you.
When posed with the question of what is wrong with the way music is being marketed, the first thing I think of is the recent culture of over-commercialization in music. Now, I'm not trying to make the argument that music, as art, has been tainted by the vast industry formed to package and distribute it. In fact, I buy more albums than anyone I know, regardless of age or income. And unlike many of my peers, I don't think compact discs are overpriced. Rather, the industry has become too focused on making a dollar wherever possible, and it is clearly having a negative impact on listeners everywhere.
In a true marketplace of ideas, the best work wins. Yet, in the music industry, such an emphasis is placed on marketing and one-upping the competition that many artists are ignored. The payola debacle is a shining example of what can happen when marketing is taken to an extreme. Why develop several artists when you can pool your money towards a few and have unethical station managers play them constantly? Another negative development is the recent surge in "special edition" re-releases. Albums are being reissued after less than a year with bonus tracks or a DVD, while those of us who bought the original release are left scratching our heads, feeling ripped off.
Record sales have been dropping for years, with many pointing their fingers at illegal downloading. The bigger issue here is lack of interest, or more specifically, lack of excitement. So many young people claim that "all new music sounds the same," and while I don't agree with the blanket statement, I get their meaning. Many of the mainstream acts targeted at my age group are safe bets; artists that remind us of another artist we may enjoy. If the record labels take more chances with a wider variety of artists (and marketed them equally and legally), the listener base could be galvanized, spurring increased interest and album sales. Give the listeners something to be excited for; they'll come around.
---------------
NATALIA LAVRIC
Ohio University
Major: French
Tell us everything wrong with the way music is being marketed to you.
I've started my own label. Eclectic, dynamic, and a little schizophrenic, it's got everything from Beethoven to 50 Cent and Mahler to Matisyahu. Capturing only the best from hundreds of artists, it's the greatest 6000-item digital amalgamation ever to hit iTunes - and because I've chosen everything myself, it's perfect for my taste.
Caught between the target ages for Joss and Sly and the Family Stone, we, the 18-24-year-old artists formerly known as gawky teenagers, are returning to an awkward consumer limbo wherein we're ignored in favor of the cash-wielding tweens and impulsively-spending baby boomers.
For now, I'm being marketed twelve songs, probably a hideous Macromedia slideshow that will crash my computer, and packaging that will inevitably end up in my car's backseat or a dusty bookshelf. After fighting with the gooey sticker remnants and easily breakable plastic case, I'll rip the songs onto my computer and commence obsessive listening and re-listening.
I've spent fifteen bucks for a shiny souvenir of my now-digital music and ensured that some bling-plated producer will be sleeping soundly tonight on his 4000-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. The marketing industry's got to catch up with today's college kids and realize that since the advent of the mix tape - and now, CD - we've picked and chosen from the best songs we can find and molded them into cohesive, painstakingly-planned creations where we serve as producers. There's more to us than beer and pizza. Usually.
So, ahem, head honchos. We'll spend money - promise! - but to find the way into discerning collegiate downloaders' hearts and pockets, forget CDs. Let us choose individual mp3s online, and to keep a fan base, start tours that venture into the bucolic college towns where we live nine months out of the year. The occasional road trip (insert high-five and "dude!" here) is fun and certainly memorable, but having my favorite bands in close proximity to my apartment is much more desirable, and ultimately, more beneficial for everyone.
I'll be waiting for your tour buses to roll into southeastern Ohio. Until then, I'll be ripping songs and throwing around my collection of reflective mini-Frisbees.
---------------
MEGAN MILLER
University of Florida
Major: Journalism
Tell us everything wrong with the way music is being marketed to you.
Young adults, from the age they get their driver's licenses to nineteen years old are as diverse as the many new bands trying to make it big all around the country. One would think it would be natural for these individuals who enjoy music to discover these bands. However, the (rock) stars don't just align and allow the right ears to hear the perfect group. Marketing music does require careful thought and concentrated skill, and the way it is executed now needs improvement.
New artists and groups are hard to find and sift through in the limited amount of time that is just twenty four hours per day. Successful promotion techniques are essential in aiding the public find new music they will enjoy. Now, music is being marketed to the age group of sixteen to twenty year olds primarily through television and local radio stations. These are great channels to go through in any promotion campaign, but they are being used the wrong way. Hardly anything being played on the radio and absolutely nothing that is shown on television is new to those that are eagerly anticipating and searching our their next big music obsession. To those who are music savvy, there really is no music marketing directed at them. By the time the TV channels or radio stations pick up on the popular music they want to promote, this audience has already given the talent their judgment.
Marketing music should be expanded with the main emphasis on local venues and live shows. Promoting performances gets new bands names familiar and their music heard by many, right as it?s created. It also eliminates the difficulty in finding new music to listen to by those that are spending time searching for gripping sounds. People that don't have the time to seek out music will also benefit by being bombarded with names of groups and artists that they can choose to give a chance. Music is being marketed the wrong way to those that impatiently look for new artists because it is hardly marketed to them at all. Everyone would benefit from a marketing campaign that focused on promoting live shows and the new hot venues in the area.
|
 |
|
Contact Us 
