Music Research

I / Music in the USA and in the UK :

1 / Classical music first

2 / Different styles of music, social identity. Rock in the UK. Rivalry…

3 / Influence of the music of the UK and the USA on the world

II / The development of the music industry

In the late 1970s, the music industry started to change. Record sales took off and the market became more and more profitable. At that period music evolved into a real business. And as in every business, making money was the main goal of most music companies (these companies take 59% of the profits while artists only take 10% !). One of the most significant fact to illustrate this evolution is the legalization of TV commercials for music albums between 1988 and 1992. With these TV commercials music became an industry. Artists create music in order to sell it, their music has to be loved by the more people possible. Consumption is now the rule and making good music is of secondary importance.

In order to earn more and more money, big music companies were looking for hit singers and a new type of singers appeared : the one-hit wonders. They are singers who just make one hit single, sell millions of it and then disappear. We have tons of examples such as the girls band 4 Non Blondes with its hit single What’s Up or Joan Osbourne with her song One of Us. These singers suddenly became extremely famous, they were in every TV show, they were everywhere but their careers stopped right after the release of their second singles.

In this context, the voice or the talent are not anymore essential. Being pretty is much more important than being able to sing well or having a real talent. Here, the example of the Spice Girls is quite relevant, they don’t really have an awesome voice, they barely can sing, they cannot play any instrument but they are pretty and they can dance. They don’t write their songs, someone else makes their music. With the Spice Girls, the phenomenon...