AUDIO CLIPPING
“Anyone who has listened to good music with any enjoyment will admit to an unmistakable but quite indefinable thrill. He will not be able, with sincerity, to say that such a passage gave him such visual impressions, or such a harmony roused in him such emotions. The effect of music is too subtle for words…the power of music to give expression without the help of representation is its noblest possession. No painting has ever had such a precious power.” – Michal T.H. Sadler
Considering the prodigious amount of commercialization in music and our entire hyper-consumerist culture, the intended persuasive effects of a given element may experience clipping – the distortion of a waveform when an amplifier is overdriven.
How does Timothy Taylor’s “The Sound of Capitalism: Advertising, Music, and the Conquest of Culture” characterize the relationship between overtness and effectiveness with regards to persuasive music in advertising scenarios? Furthermore, in what ways is this dichotomy reflected in the build of current musical advertisements?
Every discourse on American mass media can trace its roots back to the expansion of radio infrastructure in the early 1920s. At the U.S.’s inaugural radio conference in 1922, President Herbert Hoover declared it was “unconceivable that we should allow so great a possibility for service, for news, for entertainment, for education, and for vital commercial purposes, to be drowned in advertising chatter.” Though enamored by his vision of broadcast technology enabling universal access to culture, Hoover’s spirited remarks remained acutely aware of the medium’s commercial potential. These dueling attitudes would engender what Taylor would call the goodwill model of broadcast advert...
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...not feature a signature track, but rather snippets of live audio from the session; it has no information about the album itself, not even a release date; and most notably it contains no images or information regarding the supposedly advertised product, the Samsung Galaxy smartphone. The ad has 24,566,008 views on YouTube. Music, and creativity, has become such a signifier of hipness that Samsung’s pitch is not Jay-Z or his music, not their product, but merely their association to the art of making music. In the infant years of musical advertising, the songs would contain factual information about products; in its recent adolescence, it portrayed a lifestyle you could identify with; and now in its maturity, music in the advertisements is the culture – the cool, the hip the trendy - and it seductively invites you not simple to watch but to participate in the process.
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Michael Parenti (2002) declares media in the United States is no longer “free, independent, neutral and objective.” (p. 60). Throughout his statement, Parenti expresses that media is controlled by large corporations, leaving smaller conglomerates unable to compete. The Telecommunications Act, passed in 1996, restricted “a single company to own television stations serving more than one-third of the U.S. public,” but is now overruled by greater corporations. (p. 61). In his opinion, Parenti reveals that media owners do not allow the publishing of stories that are not beneficial and advantageous. Parenti supports his argument very thoroughly by stating how the plutocracy takes control over media in multiple ways: television, magazines, news/radio broadcasting, and other sources.
Over the centuries, the media has played a significant role in the shaping of societies across the globe. This is especially true of developed nations where media access is readily available to the average citizen. The media has contributed to the creation of ideologies and ideals within a society. The media has such an effect on social life, that a simple as a news story has the power to shake a nation. Because of this, governments around the world have made it their duty to be active in the regulation and control of media access in their countries. The media however, has quickly become dominated by major mega companies who own numerous television, radio and movie companies both nationally and internationally. The aim of these companies is to generate revenue and in order to do this they create and air shows that cater to popular demand. In doing so, they sometimes compromise on the quality of their content. This is where public broadcasters come into perspective.
The media plays a big role in forming people's’ values, whether it is a picture, tweet or music. These values are depicted through messages such as lyrics, like in Travie McCoy’s music video, for his song, “Billionaire.” Travie McCoy’s hit song, which features another artist Bruno Mars, was released in the year of 2010. The music video for “Billionaire,” was produced to show the different purposes of the music video and captures these purposes by using rhetorical appeals: pathos and logos.
In “Wires and Lights in a Box,” the author, Edward R. Murrow, is delivering a speech on October 15, 1958, to attendees of the Radio-Television News Directors Association. In his speech, Murrow addresses how it is his desire and duty to tell his audience what is happening to radio and television. Murrow talks about how television insulates people from the realities in the world, how the television industry is focused on profits rather than delivering the news to the public, and how television and radio can teach, illuminate, and inspire.
The second article, “Commercialization of the Rap Music Youth Subculture” by M. Elizabeth Blair, expresses the point of the use of rap music to sell a product even though advertisers know nothing of the subculture....
Do you like hip-hop? Do you think hip-hop brings people’s attention to an advertisement or commercial? In “Selling Down: The Marketing of the Hip-op Nation” which was adapted from Other People 's Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America” (2007), author and senior editor Jason Tanz argues that hip-hip is a useful source to get the attention of the people; therefore, marketers and salesmen should keep using hip-hop in advertisements and commercials no matter what or who opposes. He also argues the idea that youth see themselves as being members of a higher status by wearing brand name clothing that is advertised by hip-hop.
In conclusion towards the arguments and observations, musical expression consists in presenting emotion characteristics in appearance. It turns out people listen to music as having a purposeful nature and that it has an effect on psychological emotions. If there is a case in which music showing emotional qualities with no reference to feelings, there is a case of happy music that is not powerful of happiness.
Pop culture and mainstream media is a world of constant evolution, and throughout the ages music has been a factor in that said evolution. From the Jazz Movement of the 20’s to the Hip-Hop Revolution of the 90’s and everything in between, trends today and the basis of most Pop Culture revolved around what some would call “the sound of the decade”. Electronic Music has significantly changed the course of mainstream culture, had a remarkable rise in finance and business, all while making it today’s biggest music movement since the decade of Hip-Hop.
“Radio’s America: The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture,” accessed February 3, 2014, http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/471921.html.
...t that is what made it truly beautiful because it conveyed a picture. All of the pieces I heard made me think about the music itself, and wonder what the composer was picturing as he wrote.
Thus was ushered in the “Golden Age” of radio, which hearkened unto all as a symbol of hope and amusement. During the golden age of radio, which occurred during the 1940s, the amount of money spent on radio advertising significantly increased. This steady popularity saw radio rise above the traditional newspaper as the most popular provider of commercial marketing in the advertisement industry. Radio listeners were faithful and supportive. As a result of this, radio e...
For years, the population has been exposed to different forms of media. Newspapers, magazines, television, films, radio, and more recently the Internet are ways of promoting ideas, spreading news, and advertising products.
Tagg, P. (1982). Analysing popular music; theory, method and practise. Popular Music (2), pp. 71-101.
"The Purpose of Music." EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints. Web. 23 Feb. 2010. .
“The average family is bombarded with 1,100 advertisements per day … people only remembered three or four of them”. Fiske’s uses an example of kids singing Razzmatazz a jingle for brand of tights at a woman in a mini skirt. This displayed to the reader that people are not mindless consumers; they modify the commodity for their use. He rejects that the audiences are helpless subjects of unconscious consumerism. In contrast to McDonald’s, Fiske’s quoted “they were using the ads for their own cheeky resistive subculture” he added. He believed that instead of being submissive they twisted the ad into their own take on popular culture (Fiske, 1989, p. 31)