Exam Essay - Beck Vs X-factor

Translating the exam questions;

Question 1
Social networking is increasingly expanding and growing worldwide. How is this important for the music industry and new artists? How does this affect the procumers?

Question 2
Major labels take up a large section of the music industry, these labels promote and distribute there music / image to a worldwide community. To what extent do you agree with this?

Question 3
Popular songs rely on social networking and visual aspects to a certain procumer as much as they do to the actual mash up / music. To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Question 4

Talk about the different problems that record company’s and artists may comes across when producing and exchanging their music, what issues may need to be looked at within the ownership of the track? 

   Exam;

   Beck Vs X-Factor

   Beck is a DIY artist who has made it by himself, he writes sheet music and leaves it up to his fans to interoperate it, some fans also make music videos for their own interpretation. Beck as a artist doesn't try to reach a large audience, Beck is unique and doesn't try to please everyone. Beck has a niche audience that are dedicated to him, as beck doesn't try to please everyone the small section of people who do appreciate and are dedicated to him stick by him as they don't get lost and stray away, the fans also feel like they have a connection with Beck, being in such a small community the fans feel apart of something. One of the main reasons some of the fans have such a good relationship towards Beck is because he plays their versions of the music, the audience can get involved and be apart of Beck's music. X-factor on the other hand is a talent show where you follow the contestant from the very beginning, many fans say this is why they feel so connected to the artists that become famous as a result from being on the show. The fans give feedback as to what is popular which allows each to contestant to either go home or stay and go through to the next round, the power of deciding who stays allows the audience to feel important and involved. Although X-factor and Beck have two completely different audiences they both rely on their own individual audience in order to survive in the music industry. Beck wouldn't be known unless it was for his fans, Beck wouldn't have so many versions of each song as less he had a dedicated fan base like he does. X-Factor needs the fans in order to give feedback and vote, without the participation of the audience the show would be nothing.

   Beck produces sheet music which he then passes over to his fans, they then translate the music to how they understand and imagine it to sound, some fans also produce music videos to go with the sound that they have produced. This gives Beck an opportunity to then pick the best most interesting sound that he thinks will sell. All of this put together is the different stages in the music industry, production, distribution and marketing and exchange. The traditional way in the music industry is to do all three of these stages one after the other, Beck has actually blended all of these different stages into one. The production of the music itself is a result of the exchange from beck and his fans, the distribution and marketing is also done within the fans. Although X-factor is nothing like Beck and has completely different practices, it has actually done the same thing as Beck and blended all the the different stages of the music industry together. Producing music and an image for the artist, x-factor is a well known show that distributes music the whole time it is airing, not only do you listen to the music every week on the tele but as soon as a contestant has finished a song it is automatically placed on the internet, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and many other sites. The exchanging process takes part every week, not only do they contestants receive votes form their fans but they are constantly receiving feedback over social networking sites. This shows that although X-factor and Beck are different in their own ways, they both are blending up the music industry.

   X-factor is a well known show that that is popular for the costumes, light shows and dancers, the whole show is based around the visual aspects. People reply on the visuals in order to be entertained, this is where Beck and X-factor and extremely different. Beck writes sheet music and leaves it up to his fans to do the rest, Beck doesn't use any lights or fancy videos in order to get his audience's attention. 

   Visualisation has been argued to devalue the music, comparing Beck and X-factor i would agree with this. X-factor is purely based on the visuals, with out them there would be no show, when watching the program all the attention is on the show not the music, the judges even comment if the contestants cant dance or the show wasn't 'entertaining' enough, I personally feel this is taking the whole purpose out of the show. X-factor is all about the scandals, rumours and publicity, some of the people that get through on the x-factor cant even sing they are on there purely for the entertainment. X-factor devalues music and there is no arguing against it. Beck on the other hand is all about the music, you can see that the only reason Beck writes the music is because he is passionate about it, Beck doesn't use any fancy visuals or shock scandals in order to get liked, he simply writes music that he thinks is interesting and will be liked and played by his fans.