The widespread access to digital technology has played a major aspect in the increase in democratisation of the music industry and the distribution of the products.
Due to the Social Media development allowing independent artists to create and distribute their own music without the partnering of a music industry’s oligopoly, artists such as Alex Day have become successful due to how helpful the viral marketing of his music can actually be. One of the songs he released independently "forever yours" reached number 4 on the 2011 Christmas singles chart, this just shows how much the social media plays a part in the knowing of the produced single, because its very rare to get into the charts without having a music industry oligopoly relationship. Alex appeared to have a marketing theory which was to create a YouTube holiday which was on the 8th of December, this was called "forever day". The intentions of this was to bring the awareness to his fans of his plans and aspirations to get into the Christmas music charts without being signed. His YouTube channel was extremely successful with over 1,000,000 subscribers re-posting, and sharing his videos through different Social Networking sites, some of them being Twitter and Facebook this helped with the increasing awareness of his music. This shows that with the development of the Media, unsigned artists can distribute their product at a low cost which is more beneficial, than causing extra expenses to be lost if joining with an oligopoly such as Sony Music to market their music. Another musician who started off like Alex Day is Justin Bieber, he distributed his music through his own YouTube channel, by doing covers of a variety of songs. In this instance he was very clever to do so, because it created a larger audience to appreciate and share his videos. This then led him to have the break in his music career where a top music producer noticed Justin and then went on to sign him to the record label itself leading him to have a relationship within the oligopoly system. This shows that without the availability of the social media, Alex Day as well as Justin Bieber would not have been able to persue the future they have now created for themselves.
Although the social media helps with the marketing of self produced music and the distribution of it, it will have to show a major development in order to get the same results as the other oligopolies such as Sony. To back this point up i carried out a Questionnaire which consisted of two basic questions, this was given to a class of 30. These are the results in percentages below:
Do you know of the Musician Justin Bieber? 100%
Do you know of the Musician Alex Day? 35%
Therefore my primary research can show that yes the social media does increase the awareness of musicians and their products, but not nearly enough as the oligopolies such as Sony do.
Due to the Social Media development allowing independent artists to create and distribute their own music without the partnering of a music industry’s oligopoly, artists such as Alex Day have become successful due to how helpful the viral marketing of his music can actually be. One of the songs he released independently "forever yours" reached number 4 on the 2011 Christmas singles chart, this just shows how much the social media plays a part in the knowing of the produced single, because its very rare to get into the charts without having a music industry oligopoly relationship. Alex appeared to have a marketing theory which was to create a YouTube holiday which was on the 8th of December, this was called "forever day". The intentions of this was to bring the awareness to his fans of his plans and aspirations to get into the Christmas music charts without being signed. His YouTube channel was extremely successful with over 1,000,000 subscribers re-posting, and sharing his videos through different Social Networking sites, some of them being Twitter and Facebook this helped with the increasing awareness of his music. This shows that with the development of the Media, unsigned artists can distribute their product at a low cost which is more beneficial, than causing extra expenses to be lost if joining with an oligopoly such as Sony Music to market their music. Another musician who started off like Alex Day is Justin Bieber, he distributed his music through his own YouTube channel, by doing covers of a variety of songs. In this instance he was very clever to do so, because it created a larger audience to appreciate and share his videos. This then led him to have the break in his music career where a top music producer noticed Justin and then went on to sign him to the record label itself leading him to have a relationship within the oligopoly system. This shows that without the availability of the social media, Alex Day as well as Justin Bieber would not have been able to persue the future they have now created for themselves.
Although the social media helps with the marketing of self produced music and the distribution of it, it will have to show a major development in order to get the same results as the other oligopolies such as Sony. To back this point up i carried out a Questionnaire which consisted of two basic questions, this was given to a class of 30. These are the results in percentages below:
Do you know of the Musician Justin Bieber? 100%
Do you know of the Musician Alex Day? 35%
Therefore my primary research can show that yes the social media does increase the awareness of musicians and their products, but not nearly enough as the oligopolies such as Sony do.