Industry research

My chosen band – 1984

Indie/ rock/ pop band according to their own classification of themselves

Unsigned and organic

3 sources of information for this band –

http://www.myspace.com/thebandis1984

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4055048473?area=1

http://www.unsigned.com/1984

Here’s an old video of the band live to give an idea of the type of gigs they perform

Bands similar to mine make their way through social networking sites, the most famous and biggest in recent times to make their way into the industry independently is probably Lily Allen. The accessability to new and modern bands over social networking allows for more interaction with fans and a can open up new forms of communication with audiences. The free nature of the social networking sites also allows for new genres to break through that are neither mainstream or for the masses. The ‘myspace’ era of music has helped increase sales of music despite an increase in illegal downloads, most bands similar to my own tend to use online downloading of songs as a key tool for promotion, even often giving away tracks for free to promote. One statistic from ‘http://gizmodo.com/5133065/95-of-music-downloads-are-pirated’ states that 95% of music downloads are pirated and only 5% of them are actuallt bought, though the statistic may not be trusted as there is no real way to judge this, the music buisness itself, from downloads made $3.7 billion in 2008.

The industry has tried to move forward with the times by adapting to the market, for example sites like napster have boomed and the recent forming of the online site ‘spotify’ creates most of its revenue through advertising products and promoting bands music. Other ways in which the bands in this industry have promoted themselves is through youtube, the availability of media creation tools has allowed bands to self produce music videos and promotional devices over the internet, sites like youtube have become increasingly important to independent bands due to large record labels in the UK not renewing the contract with youtube due to complications in finance. The breakdown of this contract has allowed independent bands to take centre stage.