Does the music industry create the market?

To some extent both the music industry and the audience are responsible for the market. On the one hand the music industry are the ones who own all the music and distribution rights, and in theory should be able to dictate trends and control the market. However the reality is that the audience has a far greater role to play than the more common passive consumer, they pick what music to buy and more often than not adopt trends from the independant labels which are then picked up by the major music companies.This degree of choice and the existance of independant labels means that the music industry is actually very limited in its ability to create and market trends, relying instead on the audiences current taste to cater to. It is this almost symbiotic relationship between the industry and the audience that creates the music market.

Uncut Review

Uncut is a magazine targeted at an older almost vintage generation. Mainly for the over 30`s Uncut has many articles on classic favourites such as Bon Jovie, as well as features on various historical musical events of the later 1960`s 70`s. Seeming to have evolved with its audience many of the adverts are targeted at people of means, with adverts for top of the range cars and high quality cameras. A large number of the adverts are for musical based products as well as HMV and upcoming Festivals and shows. Also featured in Uncut are reviews of some of the latest music which has been released, thereby catering to its audience’s desire for the new as well as the retro. Many of the articles are text heavy and whilst they do contain images are targeted at a more informative read than a purely visual treat.

Are Blackness and Whiteness useful concepts in the study of Popular Music?

The concepts of blackness and whiteness are to some degree useful when studying popular music. They allow theorists and other people studying trends to identify where the music is from and how it is originated. It is however only useful as a starting point, of far greater importance are issues of class and location these types of issues have a greater relevance to why the music is the way it is but ti is difficult to access these ideas without finding a way of dividing the music up first. These issues are easier to address if there is a framework to build upon which is where the ideas of blackness and whiteness in music come in helpful. They are not defining concepts more guidelines which help to address underlying social issues in the propagation of certain types of music.