Background To The Music Industry And Some Basic Theory

This article has some key points about the music industry that will come in useful when making my music video.

Genre is the classification of text according to the style and content and form and manner of production. Of all the different forms of media, pop music is the most dependant on genre including different genres of text.

Music falls into the following categories:

• Pop
• Dance
• R and B
• Hip - Hop/ Rap
• Rock
• Punk
• Country and Western
• Folk
• Jazz
• Blues
• Latin
• Gospel
• Reggae 
• New Age

Each of these categories contains sub - genres. However each of these genres has unique musical characteristics,  which can be associated with other factors such as clothing, hair and lifestyle. Each genre has specific places to perform such as nightclubs, radio stations, magazines and festivals.

Genre And Artist Image

Image is key for  music genre, as the artists look categorises them before they start singing or playing. Looks can be as generic as sound - it is hard to distinguish between hip hop videos. For example, Adele whose music draws from classic pop styles of 1960s and 1970s, is often photographed wearing classic retro clothing associating her with her role models Dusty Springfield or Aretha Franklin.

Genre And Sales

As well as publishing overall sales figures, the billboard chart is subdivided into no less that 43 different music genre categories