Very Good Sample Response A/B: Industry/Music

B4. Explore how your chosen texts use digital technology in their marketing.

My three texts for this section are Lady Gaga’s 2011 album ‘Born This Way’, Radiohead’s 2011 album ‘The King of Limbs' and Nirvana’s 1991 album ‘Nevermind’. Each of my artists took different approaches to marketing with and without the use of digital technology.

Gaga uses digital technology such as the internet to sell her albums as well as making a retail copy. Her 2011 album ‘Born This Way’ sold 440,000 copies within two days via download on the Amazon website for a price of only 99 cents. A consequence of this new digital system and method for obtaining music is that fans can illegally download/ leak the album before the intended release date. Oxford band ‘Radiohead’ found a way around this problem when self-releasing their 7th album ‘In Rainbows’ (2007).

Breaking free of major labels and embracing digital technology Radiohead set up a website where they released ‘In Rainbows’ allowing their fans/ everyone to pay what they wanted for a digital copy, which let the fans decide how much the music was worth to them. This proved highly profitable for the band themselves and set a new industry model whereby the artists gained more profit and more control.

Lady Gaga is also well known for using Twitter to communicate with her social networking, teenage fans on a regular basis, creating a parasocial relationship with them. Overall the singer/ songwriter has 41,482,584 followers on the social networking site as well as other followers on other sites such as Facebook and Google+. The connection she has with her fans via the use of social media allows her to cultivate and reinforce a personal relationship with her fans to preserve her popularity and mainstream pop status. Digital technology therefore allows wider access and increases potential sales in the modern digital market.

Gaga’s success and popularity increased as she became more globally known through the use of digital technology. She released 5 singles over an 8 month period all accompanied with a music video, which can be found on her own YouTube channel. Repeated views increase her market value and maintain a level of popularity. The high production values together with the glamorous and provocative appearance of Gaga herself also made her videos compulsive viewing for her fans (Little Monsters as she calls them) on YouTube. She gains millions of hits per video and this encourages countless fans to create viral copycat productions which have increased her online presence immensely.

A band who didn’t follow this modern, mainstream method of marketing was Radiohead, an indie/ alternative rock band from Oxford, UK. Their self-promotion and self-releases of albums ‘In Rainbows’ (2007) and ‘The King of Limbs’ (2011), via their website allowed the release(s) to occur globally and at the same time see an increase in sales due to their established fanbase, cultivated via their major label EMI. ‘The King of Limbs’ sold an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 copies through the website alone. The experiment they conducted with the release of album 7 ‘In Rainbows,’ limited the possibility of illegal recordings/ leaks being distributed allowing the band more control in their output. This unique form of marketing resulted in positive and negative press coverage as a result of bypassing and not conforming to the usual record industry models. For the band themselves it allows more freedom and more profit, they have stated that they earned more money from their self-released albums – something the industry have historically depended upon.

As the band already had an established fan base, they didn’t accompany their 2011 album ‘The King Of Limbs’ with a tour and only released a niche, low budget, DIY music video for one track ‘Lotus Flower’, solely targeting their pre-existing fan base. Both Gaga and Radiohead gained and have sustained their fan bases and promoted their work(s) through the use of digital technology.

A band that didn’t have access to digital marketing during their career were ‘grunge’/ rock three-piece Nirvana. For their 1991 album ‘Nevermind’ they were totally reliant upon marketing via their major record label Geffen. Coverage from music press such as ‘NME’ and ‘Rolling Stone’ magazines, helped promote the bands profile but ‘word of mouth’ was essential in spreading the message about the bands work pre-internet as well as TV appearances and live touring. Due to this it took the band 5 months to get to number 1 on the Billboard 200 charts, whereas both ‘The King of Limbs’ and ‘Born This Way’ went straight to the top of the charts in their first week proving the effective use of digital technology in the music industry in todays modern marketplace.

Digital technology was not available during these times but their popularity is now widely promoted via ITunes and other online sites such as Facebook as a form of nostalgia for both those that enjoyed their music at the time and new fans. The suicide of lead vocal Kurt Cobain and the rise in sales post-death poses the statement that ‘artists make more money/ get more recognition once they’re dead’. This can be proven due to release of albums such as ‘Nirvana’s Greatest Hits’ released via online stores for the 20th Anniversary of Cobain’s death, promoting their work further with the use of digital technology.

Digital technology is highly used in order to market and promote artists in the music industry today as it has an immediate impact on fans and allows fans to access and download their work(s) in high quality, reducing the costs of production and distribution for music labels. The use of digital technology also allows for new artists to become widely known through social networking sites.

Lady Gaga - Born this way

Lady Gaga: 'Born This Way' 99 cent sale (2 day Amazon deal)

How Lady Gaga's 99-cent 'Born This Way' Sale Hurt Interscope, Distributors

Let's get one thing straight. The Lady Gaga 99 cent sale for 'Born This Way' was a great thing for the artist, and for Amazon. On a short-term basis, you could even make the case that it was great for the industry.

The 99 cent sale was big mainstream-media news, and that certainly benefited everyone, including other retailers. The album sold 1.1 million units -- 662,000 digital, 449,000 physical--in its debut week ending May 29, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The story lasted all week in the press. It worked the same way that Target and Best Buy circulars work: driving traffic to everyone's stores, not just those two big-box chains, or, in this case, Amazon's site. I'd argue that the glitch arising when Amazon's overwhelmed servers couldn't satisfy customer demand was a good thing, too, since it made the sale even bigger news. Given Amazon's impeccable service reputation, that blip won't hurt it long term.

For the cost of $3.3 million-that is, $8.40 wholesale minus 99 cents retail times 443,000 scans during the two-day sale-Amazon put itself on the map as a digital music merchant, in a way that the same amount of money spent on traditional advertising could never have bought.

But whether the sale helps Interscope remains to be seen. First, Interscope and Universal Music Group Distribution (UMGD) shipped 2.1 million album units before street date. If they knew in advance of Amazon's sale, you can bet they would've cut back on the initial CD allotment.

As is, Interscope has an inventory liability, with some merchants saying they need to return product. And if some of that talk comes from a few retail accounts being miffed over the Amazon deal, some is also due to simple math. The CD album sold 449,000 units of the 2.1 million shipped, for a 21.4 percent sell-through. Second-week sales are at 174,000 units (136,000 CDs), or 27.8 percent sell-through.

A decade ago, major-label shipment formulas called for shipping three units for everyone expected to be scanned in the first week. Nowadays, with a more efficient inventory replenishment, the ratio has dipped under 2-to-1.

But in Lady Gaga's case, UMGD shipped 4.7 units for each first-week scan. Even another big hit single, which would ensure a sooner sell-through of all 2.1 million units, won't stop merchants now from returning the album to improve their cash position. Interscope is probably looking at a few hundred thousand returns, depending on whether the label comes up with a sweetener to keep inventory in stores.

Competing labels and distributors may be even angrier than merchants about the sale. "This was a really bad move," the head of an independent distributor says. "Ninety-nine cents is almost free."

"If this happened in the 1990s, there would have been a big hue and cry from retail, even bigger than what it was this time," the head of sales at a major label says.

But these are different times. And in the digital world, "there are going to be times when music is the toy in the Happy Meal," a UMG executive says. Another Universal exec adds, "If Amazon tries to turn 99 cent superstar albums into a regular thing, I would be outraged."

Yet, some suggest that a few label marketers themselves may now start pushing such a pricing strategy to break an artist, or get an album into the No. 1 spot. Others say that, in the '90s, that inevitably would've followed-but not in today's market, when profit trumps chart success.

For all the talk about how the industry has evolved, though, former distribution executive Jim Caparro says, "It is shocking how consistent the industry is with the past. Today, it is almost parallel to how traditional music retail acted back then, with big accounts looking to steal market share by pricing."

But one executive familiar with Amazon's thinking says the Gaga pricing won't hurt the industry.

"Of course 'Born This Way' is worth more than 99 cents," the executive says. "That's why it created such retail excitement and buzz, when it was offered for 99 cents ... If it wasn't actually worth more, no one would have cared."

Source: www.billboard.com

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Music

'A' Grade Exam Response

Section B: Industry & Audience

B4. Explore how your chosen texts use digital technology in their marketing. (30)

Digital technology such as the internet and online stores such as itunes all present new ways for a consumer to discover or buy new music.

Lady Gaga is a perfect example with her first album/CD 'The Fame' selling over 12 million copies with many of these downloaded from the internet and thus making it the most downloaded release of all time. As a consequence of this new digital system and method for obtaining music, fans of artists can now retrieve albums quickly without the need for going to a music store such as HMV. The internet was also used to promote her album sales with posters and the ability to listen to several of the tracks earlier than their official release on youtube, therefore promoting sales and interest to fans who will then go to buy the physical version of the album. Sites such as itunes also marketed 'The Fame' by creating billboards over their webpage and adding links to the itunes store to the Lady Gaga album once it was made available to boost sales to the consumer via convergence. Lady Gaga is also well known for using Twitter to communicate with her social networking teenage fans on a regular basis, in this way she continually cultivates and reinforces a personal relationship with her fans to preserve her popularity and mainstream pop status.

Her popularity gradually increased through successive single releases such as 'Just Dance', 'Papparazzi' and 'Pokerface'. The high production values together with the glamorous and provocative appearance of Lady Gaga herself also made her videos compulsive viewing for her fans on youtube, where she now has her own channel.  She gains millions of hits per video and encourages countless of fans to create viral copycat productions that have increased her online profile immensely.

A band, however, who did not follow this modern mainstream method of marketing was Radiohead who are an indie/alternative rock band from Oxford UK. Instead of using this same method as artists in the mainstream such as Lady Gaga, Radiohead themselves marketed their new album release 'In Rainbows' by self-promotion through youtube with a number of tracks played live. They also made their album available via download only through their own website and allowed the fans/consumers to pay whatever price they wanted to including nothing and download the recording quickly and immediately and in high quality without even leaving their homes. Releasing the album in this way also allowed the release to occur globally at the same time, increasing overall sales (1.2 million copies) and limiting the possibility of the illegal recordings being distributed. Although this unique style of marketing did not initially produce a profit for the band, they gained a great deal of negative, as well as positive, press coverage as a result for bypassing the usual record industry models. Live performance appearances also helped promote the release on the SkyArts satellite channel to a more adult highbrow audience in direct contrast to the way that Lady Gaga was marketed.

After its initial download only release, 'In Rainbows' was released with a more mainstream physical CD release available in music stores and other online sites such as itunes. The release, even though initially only available as a download, still gained chart success and also became the bands most successful release to date. Clearly allowing the fans/audience to pay whatever they wanted to did not damage physical or chart sales and signalled a warning to the record industry who are presently struggling to recapture a sales market that is falling due to digital file sharing and bootlegging.

A band that did not have access to digital marketing during their heyday was 'grunge'/metal three-piece Nirvana. For their releases in the early 1990's, such as 'Nevermind', they were totally reliant upon marketing via their major label record company Geffen. The underground music scene and music press coverage also helped promote the bands profile but 'word of mouth' was essential in spreading the message about the authenticity of the band and their blistering live performances in the days before online technology became commonplace.

Digital technology was not available during these times but their popularity is now widely promoted via itunes and other online sites such as Facebook as a form of nostalgia for both those that enjoyed their music at the time and new fans. Clearly the suicide of the lead singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain has continued to assist the mythology of Nirvana and generate sales of all of their releases on the internet and perpetuate the appeal for 'grunge' music in general. After his death albums such as 'Nirvana's Greatest Hits' were released on online stores and with the 20th Anniversary of his death looming the internet is likely to spread promotion further.

Digital technology is highly used in order to market and promote artists in the music industry today as it is cheap, immediate and of a high quality reducing the costs of production and distribution for music labels. It allows for new artists to become widely known through social networking sites as Arctic Monkeys did with Myspace. 

MS4: Lady Gaga/Nirvana (Audience Response = Mash-up)

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Music

Exam Approaches

Your 3 Focus Texts for Industry are:
Radiohead: 'The King of Limbs'
Lady Gaga: 'Born This Way'
Nirvana: 'Nevermind'

Details about the release patterns and success of each release are well documented on wikipedia and will provide a good basis for discussion of the central issues (use the links above): 

• Compare and contrast how audiences responded to the differing ways that the Music Industry treated these albums/CD's release
• What were the sales generated by these releases?
• What were the markets/fans for each individual release?
• What was the impact upon the Music Industry as a result of these releases?
• How did these releases appeal to differing audiences?
• What were the marketing strategies for each release?
• How was each release promoted via singles and/or video production?

Take notes on the production, promotion and markets for each release:

• Analyse/examine/discuss the production values of these artists videos
• What are the genre conventions and stylistics for each artist?
• Who would they appeal to? Why?
• Mainstream/Niche/Alternative market? Discuss
• Reasons for success? Discuss
• Reasons for popularity? Discuss
• How far did advances in technology play in the distribution and success of these releases for each artist? 
• How far has the Industry changed over time? Refer to technological advances
• What did fans/audiences want?
• Explore the uses and gratifications of each text for those audience

B1. How important is the internet to your selected industry? Refer to your chosen texts in your answer. [30]

B2. Explore the impact of digital technologies on your selected industry. [30]

B3. With reference to your selected industry, explore how far your chosen texts are global [30]

B4. Explore how your chosen texts use digital technology in their marketing. [30]

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Music - Spotify/Nirvana

Spotify boss Daniel Ek: 'The music industry is entering a golden age'

Spotify CEO and founder Daniel Ek has said that he believes the music industry is about to enter "a golden age".

Ek, whose company has enjoyed a year of rapid growth and now boasts over three million paying subscribers, has said that he firmly believes that if his company and other social networking sites can help increase the amount of social interaction online users engage in, then they will definitely buy more music.

Asked by Grammy.com about his thoughts on how his company and the social sharing of music could help the music industry, Ek replied: "We look at the sharing of music as really, really important for our business. We've found that the more social our users are, the faster they grow their own music library. And the faster they grow their music library, the faster they become paying customers."

He continued: "Personally speaking, I am more bullish on the future of the music industry than ever before, and I think we're kind of entering a golden age in music."

Ek also addressed the claims that have been made by a series of music industry figures, that Spotify hinders, rather than helps artists sell records.

He said: "I'd also like to address people who think they'll gain sales by not being on Spotify. There's not a shred of data to suggest that. In fact, all the information available points to streaming services helping to drive sales. Album unit sales were up in the U.S. in 2011, the year Spotify launched, for the first time since 2004. More than a dozen albums which debuted at Number One have been available on Spotify at launch."

Ek added that his company wanted musicians to "win democratically" and that the money Spotify paid in royalty cheques would continue to grow.

He said: "Spotify users are helping pay a ton of money back to the industry. You're talking 10 million active users, 2.5 million subscribers — most of them paying $120 (£76) a year, which is double the amount of your average iTunes user. At Spotify, we really want you to democratically win as a musician. The royalty cheques we're paying out now — of course we're happy that there's progress being made, but it's still only in its early days, and it will keep growing."

NME: 4/1/12

Lady Gaga & The Art of Fame (Very Useful for Audience Response)

Or take a University Course on Lady Gaga: See below

gagacourse.blogspot.co.uk

Lady Gaga: 'The Fame' (2008)

The Fame is the debut studio album by American recording artist Lady Gaga. It was released on August 19, 2008 through Interscope Records. After joining Kon Live Distribution and Cherrytree Records in 2008, Gaga began working on the album with different producers, primarily RedOne, Martin Kierszenbaum and Rob Fusari. Musically, The Fame is a dance-pop and synthpop album that has influences of pop music from the 1980s. Lyrically, the album visualizes Gaga's love of fame in general whilst also dealing with subjects such as love, sex, money, drugs and sexual identity. Promotion was primarily through The Fame Ball Tour and multiple television appearances. The Fame was included as a bonus disc on the deluxe edition of the extended play, The Fame Monster (2009). 

The album received generally favorable reviews from music critics, who commended the album's lyrical content and Gaga's musicianship and vocal ability, which have been compared to fellow pop singers such as Gwen Stefani. The album was a commercial success, topping the charts in different countries worldwide, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Poland and Switzerland. In the United States, it peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, while topping the Dance/Electronic Albums chart for 100 non-consecutive weeks. The Fame has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.

The first two singles from The Fame, "Just Dance" and "Poker Face", gained international success, topping the charts in several countries worldwide, including the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. "Just Dance" was released as the album's lead single commercially worldwide on June 17, 2008, through digital distribution. While its third single, "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)", experienced less commercial success, the next two singles, "LoveGame" and "Paparazzi", were a commercial success as well, charting within the top ten of more than ten countries worldwide. "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" was released in the form of a promotional single. The Fame has won multiple awards since its release. It was nominated for a total of six Grammy Awards at the 52nd Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It won the Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album and the Best Dance Recording for the single "Poker Face". It also won Best International Album at the 2010 BRIT Awards.

Singles from The Fame

1. "Just Dance"
   Released: April 8, 2008
2. "Poker Face"
   Released: September 23, 2008
3. "Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)"
   Released: January 10, 2009
4. "LoveGame"
   Released: March 24, 2009
5. "Paparazzi"
   Released: July 6, 2009

Lady Gaga stripped of 156m YouTube views

Lady Gaga has had 156m views struck off her official YouTube account today just one month after the online video provider reduced the play counts of many major label acts by 2 billion views.

At the time of the first purge in December 2012, a YouTube spokesman told Billboard magazine that the removed views occurred when YouTube cleaned out all of the views that had once been uploaded to individual artists YouTube channels but had subsequently been replaced and were showing up on their VEVO channels instead.

However, the Lady Gaga view removal did not affect her YouTube channel with all 156m views being removed from the star's VEVO channel. Speaking at the time of the initial removal, a YouTube spokesperson stated the reasons behind the clear-up. "This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our viewcount policy."

The move came after the site conducted an audit of its viewing figures and suspected view count building techniques from hackers, who were allegedly artificially boosting views on certain videos.

VEVO is a music video website owned and operated by Sony Music Entertainment and UMG inside YouTube. Artists affected by the clear up besides Lady Gaga include Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and Beyonce.

Source: nme.com/news

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga 'earns $30 million a year from Twitter'

Marketing experts reckon 'Born This Way' star makes a third of her cash through social media site.

Lady Gaga earns $30 million (£18.9 million) through her Twitter account, according to reports.

The Wall Street Journal claims that the 'Born This Way' star has built up such a strong relationship with her followers on the social media site that it is worth one third of the reported $90 million (£56.9 million) that she made last year.

Marketing manager John Bonini, who works for Impact Branding & Design, claimed that the publicity and direct connection the singer has developed with her admirers through the site helps boost her earning potential, as well as ensuring that her fanbase purchase her music rather than download it illegally. He added:

"She really engages them and re-tweets stuff they say as if she was one of them". 

Gaga's popularity on Twitter is unparalleled – earlier this month (March 6), she became the first person to gain 20 million followers on the site, putting her ahead of Justin Bieber (18.1 million), Katy Perry (15.75 million), Shakira (14.56 million) and Rihanna (14.49 million). US President Barack Obama, meanwhile, is only in eighth place, with 12.84 million followers.

Previously, Gaga also became the first person to amass 10 million followers in May last year, and 18 million in January of this year.

Last month (February 24), Lady Gaga used her Twitter account to respond after her 'Born This Way' LP was dubbed the "most pretentious album ever" by NME. She wrote: "Oh the irony of winning "Most Pretentious Album Ever" from none other than NME. *eyeroll* I might laugh forever + then return to narcissism."

It seems unlikely that Gaga will react so publicly to negative publicity in the future, though – earlier this week, she revealed that she is planning a media blackout once her interview with Oprah Winfrey is broadcast this week (March 18), as she claims she has nothing else to say to the press.

NME: 16/3/12

MS4 -Text, Industry & Audience: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga breaks Twitter record:
Nearly four years after joining the social networking site Lady Gaga is the first Twitter user to reach 20 million followers.

Now more than two million followers ahead of anyone else on the site, Lady Gaga has cemented her place as the most followed on the planet.

The singer, who signed up to Twitter on 26 March 2008, had 20.12 million followers as of Monday for her @ladygaga account. A 20 millionth "Little Monster," as she calls her fans, signed up to follow her Twitter feed over the weekend.

Teen pop idol Justin Bieber is next with 18.11 million followers, and rounding out the top five were three other singers: Katy Perry with 15.75 million followers, Shakira with 14.56 million and Rihanna with 14.49 million.

US President Barack Obama is in eighth place with 12.84 million followers of his @barackobama account.

Lady Gaga has eight million fans on Facebook and more than 800,000 "circles" on Google+. Thanks in part to her viral marketing and social network sucess, the pop sensation's latest album has sold more than eight million copies worldwide.

The best-selling singer puts the popularity of her following down to writing tweets herself, rather than hiring staff to do so - as many other stars do.

She occasionally offers her followers backstage concert tickets and unveils promotion pictures on her account, but mostly she tweets about anything from fashion and music to cookies.

Gaga, who has sold an estimated 23 million albums worldwide, has come in for criticism over the aggressive online tactics employed by her fans, known as her "little monsters".  Lady Gaga fans have been accused of whipping up orchestrated internet campaigns against the likes of Adele and Madonna.

Telegraph.co.uk

Marketing Lessons From Lady Gaga

What do fame and marketing have in common? Everything. Lady Gaga has mastered fame. As a marketer looking for inspiration and lessons of marketing greatness, look no further than Gaga. With nearly 10 million Twitter followers and 33.7 million Facebook fans, Gaga's fame has become legendary. So how did a girl from New York City engineer fame in a way few have ever done?

As a marketer, you are constantly working to stand out in a crowded industry. Lady Gaga was trying to do the same thing in the over-crowded music industry. Gaga won where others lost because she obsessed about fame and connected the dots of her past experience. Here are some lessons every marketer can learn from Lady Gaga.

1. Timing is Everything - It is the speed and pace of actions and words that make or break a performance. Look at any video of a Lady Gaga performance. She nails timing. She pauses and builds momentum at all of the right times.

Marketing Takeaway: As many learned during the recent Science of Timing webinar, when content is distributed at just the right moment, it can have a major impact on its reach and performance.

2. Humility Is Key - If you subscribe to HBO, you likely saw part of Gaga's Madison Square Garden concert special. No matter which part you watched, you also likely heard her thank her fans. This is because Gaga understands that humility is key to building a rabid community of supporters.

Marketing Takeaway: Thank your customers and fans for their support. Conduct surveys to ask for input and demonstrate how that feedback is reflected in business changes. Offer free upgrades, perks, or surprise gifts for customers to show your appreciation for their business.

3. Details Matter - Lady Gaga doesn't lip sync during her concerts. She is constantly training for her dance numbers. In other words, she obsesses over all the details related to her product and brand.

Marketing Takeaway: Remember that the little things matter. For example, if you've just conducted a website redesign, make sure your website's links redirect to URLs that you may have changed during the redesign. Online marketing is about the compiled results of multiple efforts over time. If you stop paying attention to details, results will be lost in the long term.

4. Don't Give Away the Magic - How much do you really know about Lady Gaga? Have you ever seen her wear jeans and a t-shirt? She intentionally hides her "normal" activities. She treats all of her time in public like a performance. She is a master of fame.

Marketing Takeaway: Your customers just want the magic. Customers don't care how much R&D went into a product or all of the people it took to make it happen. For the most part, customers are selfish. They want something that will solve their problem in a simple way. When creating content and developing marketing strategies, amplify the magic of the product by down-playing how the magic happens.

5. Marketing Is a Lifestyle - Gaga has made fame and marketing her lifestyle. Every performance or song release had marketing as a part of its DNA. She doesn't only focus on marketing a few months before an album is released; instead, it is an every day mindset.

Marketing Takeaway: Marketing campaigns are all well and good, but in an inbound marketing world, campaigns aren't enough. Now, marketing needs to be in the DNA of your company. Employees in all departments should create content and aid in the company's goal of market domination. Examine the daily activities of your business. How can you better integrate marketing into your business' culture?

6. Standing Out Wins - Have you tuned into an entertainment awards show in the past year? If so, you've likely heard the constant chatter about the crazy outfits Lady Gaga has worn. She is a master of standing out and being controversial. This behavior is rewarded with an abundance of media coverage and attention.

Marketing Takeaway: Being controversial isn't about taking risks. It's really just about doing something unexpected and out of character for your industry. Write a blog post that takes a different stand on a topic than most others in your industry would take. Look at how others in your industry are doing inbound marketing, and take a different approach. It's time to stand out.

For more lessons in fame and marketing from Gaga, check out this recent interview she did with Google:

Source: hubspot.com

The Impact of 'Digital' on The Music Industry

Source: infographicboard.com via Infographic on Pinterest

How The Internet Has Rocked The Music Industry

Source: mashable.com via Christina on Pinterest

The Evolution of the Online Music Industry

Source: kazagold.com via Meagan on Pinterest

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga 'The Fame'

Here is an excellent resource site for Lady Gaga interviews/videos/articles etc.
The material has been gathered for a course - 'Lady Gaga and the Sociology of the Fame'.

Click above to access site

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga 'The Fame': Review

(Interscope) 2009

Of all the synthesiser-toting singer-songwriters allegedly set to rescue the nation from the dreariness of landfill indie in 2009, New York's Lady GaGa is the most straightforward proposition. In contrast to Little Boots' unlikely cocktail of technological geekiness and north western-accented DIY aesthetic, or Frankmusik, with his Paul Morley-penned record company biog, the former Stefani Joanne Germanotta is a songwriter by appointment to the Pussycat Dolls, Britney Spears and New Kids on the Block, and a protégé of rapper Akon. She's also already a global commercial success. Her single Just Dance has made the top 10 everywhere from Australia to Switzerland and been nominated for a Grammy. It's a beguilingly compulsive tale of pulling a drug-induced whitey, with a combination of clipped marching beats, sawing electronics and mild R&B flavour that bears a vague resemblance to Nelly Furtado's Maneater.

That success seems to have led Lady GaGa to come to some pretty bullish conclusions about her own originality: "I'm defying all the preconceptions we have of pop artists," she recently told one journalist, seemingly confident of a place in the history books as the world's first pretty female singer performing synthesiser-heavy R&B-influenced pop. "I'm very into fashion," she clarified, all previous pretty female singers having apparently performed their synthesiser-heavy R&B-influenced pop clad in stuff they grabbed at random from the George at Asda half-price sale.

You certainly wonder what she's talking about when you hear her debut album. Sonically, there's nothing here that you haven't heard already. Synthesisers grind away raveishly, there are plenty of modishly knowing 80s influences, while her voice lands somewhere between Gwen Stefani and Madonna. The title track sounds like something the Xenomania production team might dream up for Girls Aloud. A little more esoterically, Money Honey is about two notes shy of a lawsuit from Cameo for infringing the copyright on Word Up, while Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) and Paper Gangsta bear the influence of early 90s Europop: the former is the first song in a long time that warrants comparison to the oeuvre of Ace of Base.

As the album's title and songs called Starstruck, Paparazzi, and Beautiful, Dirty, Rich suggest, the lyrics gleefully celebrate the most vapid and ephemeral aspects of celebrity - "I'm shiny and I know it", "We're plastic but we'll still have fun" - a stance that, bullish as ever, Lady GaGa has suggested warrants comparison to Andy Warhol, but you could just as easily argue warrants comparison to Samanda off Big Brother. Most of her love songs come couched in the terms of fame: "Now we're on our own, I've got a request, would you make me No 1 on your playlist?"

Icy love songs, shameless pop music that comments on its own shamelessness as it goes along: it's hard not to feel that you've heard a lot of this before. The title track reiterates her belief in her own originality - "I'm obsessively opposed to the typical" - but elsewhere you're struck by the feeling that Lady GaGa's pronouncements of her own uniqueness may have less to do with shamelessly talking herself up than the fact that she has absolutely no idea about what constitutes the typical. "He's a bad boy with some retro sneakers," she sings on Boys Boys Boys. "Let's go see the Killers and make out in the bleachers." He took you to see the Killers, you say? He certainly sounds like an edgy character, recklessly thumbing his nose at conventional tastes. Where's he taking you for your next date? The Ideal Home Show?

There's clearly a pretty immense gulf between what Lady GaGa's perception of herself and the reality. It's annoying, as pretension tends to be, but equally, there's a sense that it doesn't really matter. Pop music doesn't have to be blindingly original or clever to work: it needs tunes, and Lady GaGa is fantastically good at tunes. As pop albums go, it has an impressively high strike rate. Bar a couple of grisly piano ballads, virtually everything on The Fame arrives packing an immensely addictive melody or an inescapable hook, virtually everything sounds like another hit single. You might snigger at the posturing of Boys Boys Boys, but there's something undeniably exciting about the way the key shifts audaciously when it reaches the chorus. You may quickly tire of hearing the album's theme constantly reiterated, but the tune of Paparazzi takes up residence in your brain and refuses to budge.

It's not particularly clever - at least not in the way Lady GaGa thinks it is - but The Fame certainly sounds like it could be big.

Alexis Petridis
The Guardian, Friday 9 January 2009

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Lady Gaga

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MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Lady Gaga

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