mediastudies hurtwood house 2015

1. Contrasting career artists
Including Dyer’s and Negus’s
perspectives
Kristina Dubrovskaya and Sophie Blank

2. Taylor Swift
(synthetic artist)
Taylor Swift is an interesting example of starting her career by
being purely organic artist but then changing the star image
by adopting the synthetic approach
a little bit about her success:
Taylor Swift is a seven-time GRAMMY winner, and the youngest recipient in history of the
music industry’s highest honor, the GRAMMY Award for Album of the Year. She is the only
artist in history to have an album hit the 1 million first-week sales figure three times

3. Starting her career
She was very successful when had an organic ideology of creativity. For example, She
became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house and
later, the release of Ms. Swift's self-titled debut album in 2006 debuted at No. 3 and 39
weeks later, it hit the top of the charts and has sold more than 2.5 million copies. Also, her
third single, "Our Song," made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and
perform a No. 1 song on the country chart.
• Country
• Songwriter
• Playing the guitar

4. Teardrops on my Guitar
• 2006
• Taylor referred to as a
composer of this song
• we can see the instrument-
guitar that she used to
played on
• it is clearly a pure beauty,
no special effects, natural
environment.
• the music was targeted to
the teenage girls

5. 2012
In this year, the changing of Taylor’s style started to appear
• «I knew you were trouble» - noticeably different genre and different Taylor
• «We are never ever getting back together»- more dance music where you
can hardly notice country influences
• she changed her fashion style
• she began to be involved in bigger amount of scandals

6. BAD BLOOD
Swift began teasing the music video in May on Instagram by posting photos of each character.
The video broke Vevo's 24-hour viewing record by reaching the maximum views in its first day of
release.
she is very different in this music video and clearly it is more about action than her talent. There
are not only sexy elements that were already been in her previous music videos (such as we are
never getting back together) but also a Rebellious element (there is a battle between her and
other characters). She is shown to be powerful, story and VERY different to initial Taylor with
guitar and lovely curls. Instead of cute dresses, she wears revealing outfits in this music video.

7. Richard Dyer
«stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated»
• Her image has changed: before 2012, she gave this innocent
image of country-songwriter
• According to Dyer, in order to achieve success, artists need to
have some common values of music stardom.
before 2012
- youthfulness
- Originality
- Creativity/talent
after 2012
- Rebellious
- Sexual magnetism
- Originality (questioned)
- Aggression/ anger (last
music video show these)
Taylor Swift

8. 8
DIGIPAKS
He emphasized the role of stars in film, TV and music. A star is an image, not a
real person that is constructed out of a range of material such as video, artwork,
performance, media appearance etc. Stars depends upon a range of subsidiary
media- magazines, TV, radio, the internet- in order to construct an image for
themselves which can be marked to their target audience.

9. 9
There are two main paradoxes that make the star’s image incomplete in order to
built an audience’s interest to complete the image.
Paradox 1
«the star must be simultaneously ordinary and
extraordinary for the consumer»
Paradox 2
«The star must be simultaneously present and
absent for the consumer»
but unfortunately for her fans,
she doesn't really noticed and
remember them

10. Keith Negus
Identifies two distinct ways of thinking about potential
artists from within the music industry. These ideologies
(either organic or synthetic) shape the way in which the
artists’ images and careers are developed, and the way
that they are marketed towards specific target audience
2006 ORGANIC
natural look
she wasn’t involved in any scandal situations
had an naturalistic approach to her star image (e.g.
natural looking hear; elegant, country style in outfits etc)
she was a songwriter and plays the instrument by herself
she didn’t aim to be everywhere and all the time to create
word of mouth
She wasn’t change hugely by the record label. She was
given freedom to be who she wanted
she was given freedom to explore oneself
the albums were advertised more then merchandise stuff
2015 SYNTHETIC
She became a more commercially-orientated star
moved from country to popular pop
However, she is still involved in composing her songs
Firstly her songs were clearly targeted to the teenage
girls, but now looking at her music video it is hard to say
that her initial target audience haven't changed.
she changed her style completely in order to create a
more bright and pop based star image
her style was reconstructed in order to meet the the
majority’s preferences
Emphasis now is put mainly on single sales. merchandise
rather than promoting the album itself
Taylor Swift

11. Bob Dylan
(organic)
• Bob is Dylan is an American singer songwriter,
artist and writer
• Singles: Mr.Tambourine Man (1965),
Hurricaine (1976)
• influential in popular music and culture for
more than five decades

13. DIGIPAK

14. • Bob Dylan has a naturalistic approach. He is known for his
distinctive voice, depressing yet witty lyrics, lyrics about
important social issues, harmonica, curly hair, lyrics inspired by
real life events, often dresses entirely in Black, often wears a
stetson hat, thin moustache, his seemingly personal but often
mysterious and nebulous lyrics, low rasping voice
• People loved his originality and uniqueness
Hurricane (1976)

15. • Record labels: 1961- Columbia signed him to a
contract and then released his first album,
containing two original songs.
• 1962-"The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"
appeared, with all original songs including the
1960s anthem "Blowin' in the Wind."

16. • You could argue that his albums were aimed
at older or more sophisticated consumers
• Dylan increasingly evolved but had the time
through out his career
• Incomplete picture artist