Blog Post 1: The UK Music Industry

•The Growth of the Industry

The music industry is a growing area of media, due to the rapid development of technology. As seen on the left, audio streams have become increasingly popular due to the success of services like Spotify and Apple Music. Furthermore, it has become easier for people to create their own music using audio samples and loops for backing tracks and microphones that are becoming cheaper. This is due to Moore's Law, which suggests that technological power doubles around every 2 years. So for new artists to become successful quickly, they tend to be signed to big record labels.

What are Record Labels?
Record labels, such as Sony Music, are companies that market music that is recorded by artists and bands signed to them. To contribute to the music industry, they help with the recruitment and development of new artists, music publishing and copyright enforcement.

The UK music industry is dominated by 3 conglomerates. They are known as the Big Three record labels:

• Sony BMG.
• Universal Music Group.
• Warner Music Group.

These big labels are the reason for the success of many big stars, as they own distribution networks that put their signed artists to exclusive contracts. When signing an artist to these labels, licensing and distribution agreements are accepted, providing royalty fees to the labels from the artists' earnings.

Liquid State Records Logo

These labels also have subsidiaries based on different areas of specialization, such as publishing, recording and promoting certain music genres like country. An example of this is Universal Music Group Nashville, which produces country music and is a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Conglomerates like Sony have also been horizontally integrating with other record labels, an example being Liquid State Records; a subsidiary that is owned by Sony and Chinese record label Tencent Music Entertainment that focuses on EDM music from Asia and Western regions.

The Process of Making Music
Making music with a record label is very different to working independently as you have funding from your label for your music. Since the brief says that I work for an "independent media production company", it means the music video is handed over to a smaller company, suggesting no high budget cinematography, but more creative freedom. However, the production process is still similar to only working with the label so below is a summary of what I found out about the music industry process.

Sony Music Group

Olly Murs - An artist under the Sony Music label

The brief states that I am producing a music video for "a fictional pop band/artist signed to Sony Music", so I researched their brand values and artists to see what they find important.

Sony Music increasing the diversity of ethnicity with bands

such as Ateez

Sony Music is an American global music conglomerate that is ultimately owned by the Japanese conglomerate Sony. They have many subsidiary labels under the Sony Music name, such as Columbia and RCA records. They also own 50% of Syco Entertainment, which operates successful reality TV formats, such as X Factor and Got Talent. Under the Sony Music label, they have some of the world's greatest artists, such as Foo Fighters, Harry Styles, Camila Cabello, Meghan Trainor, Olly Murs, Elvis Presley, etc. They have also taken on board artists and bands from other cultures, such as the K-pop band Ateez, despite having other subsidiaries of Sony Music for other countries. This may be due to the increasing popularity of bringing artists of different cultures and their languages into western music, seen with songs such as Despacito.

Therefore, I want my artist/band to be culturally diverse, not necessarily speaking in different languages, but encouraging the idea of having Asian artists in western music. I believe that having a band with a white, Asian and black band member would have a place in the industry under the Sony label, as many groups tend to have only one culture in it. I could also consider releasing my track to platforms popular in other countries, such as Kuwo, a popular Chinese music streaming service. I need to be able to create a video that can be presented along with big names under the Sony Music label, so it must be high quality and engaging. Furthermore, since the production of new music is so simple with new technology, I must differentiate myself with an engaging website and captivating narrative for my music video.