Application Of Political Economics Theories To Music Industry Essay Example

to a state of hegemony. Hegemony refers to a powerful dominance of the less powerful. This power can either be explicit or implicit (Bates, 1975). In today’s economic environment, hegemons use media to create power in which they use to dominate. Media power is both an important economic tool as well as a political tool thus a source of implicit power to the hegemons. Frankfurt school, on the other hand, argues that these dominant forces (hegemons or capitalists) aim to pass their agenda to the dominated or employees through a popular culture such as songs, media, advertising and so on. Popular culture creates sufficient power for the hegemons to control the masses. Nevertheless, this school of thought outlines that these products created by the popular culture are similar and predictable.

The study begins by analysis of top 20 songs in the United States and Canada. Regardless of the music genre, songs in the top twenty in both United States and Canada have shown one similarity. The similarity stems from the fact that songs from different artists were recorded and distributed by a single recording company (Apple, 2016). For example, songs by Florida and Cold play were distributed by Warner music Group Company, while those from Justin Bieber, Chris Puth and Gwen Stefani were distributed by Columbia Records. Furthermore, more than 15 songs in the top twenty in both United States and Canada were recorded and distributed by just six studios. The recording studios included a Warner music group company, Def Jam Recordings; Warner Bros Records Inc, disruptor Records, Columbia Records, RCA Records and Interscope Records. Others were recorded and distributed by independent recording companies such as

XL Recordings. Further analysis of this industry showed that these recording labels were significantly related. For instance, Warner Music Group was the owners of Warner Bros Records Inc, while Sony Music Entertainment-owned Disruptor Records, Columbia Records and RCA Records. Lastly, Def Jam Recordings and Interscope Records were subsidiaries of the Universal Music Group (Leurdijk & Nieuwenhuis, 2012).

Using Marx theory, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group exercises implicit and explicit power on subordinates (smaller recording companies and artists). These major conglomerates manage close to 90% of marketing and sale of music recordings across the entire United States (Cvetkovski, 2004). According to Dewan and Ramaprasad (2014), these major conglomerates ensures coordination of the production, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, promotion and copyright enforcement of music videos and sound recordings. This business model can be referred to as the dominant business model. This is because it draws several similarities to the Marx’s ideology of a dominant force controlling all the factors of production in order to maximize profits.

The dominant business model can be applied in the United States music industry effectively. Despite the existence of many recording companies in the United States, there are for major recording companies that control the majority of the United States music market share. These dominant forces include Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Warner Music Group (Cvetkovski, 2004). These four major conglomerates also own several small recording firms. These companies are granted the copyrights of artists they sign under their various recording labels thus are at freedom to exploit these copyrights for economic gains. The artists who serve as the subordinates under this model, on the other hand,

gains by having the opportunity to produce, market, promote and distribute their music under the networks and retail outlets of these companies. The recording companies invest in these talents with an aim sharing revenues that come out of music sales, merchandising and royalties with the artists.

The recording conglomerates do not only own recording firms but other types of mass media. For example, Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment also owns media and entertainment companies including TV channels, film production and distribution companies, mobile communications among others. Using this media power, they are able to influence several artists to sign for their various record labels (Cvetkovski, 2004). On the other hand, artists also find them attractive due to their enormous investments in marketing and promotion of new music talents and new songs. Apart from sales of sound and video recordings and royalties, advertising has become another important source of revenue for these recording companies. These companies use their entertainment TV channels and other online services to promote new songs. These channels are thus used by other corporate to promote their products since entertainment channels usually attract huge viewership.

The recording companies are the main players in the music industry. However, even these recording companies are broken down into three categories depending on their influence on the market and the market share. The categories include majors which are also umbrellas to several recording labels, labels which are subsidiaries of these majors and the independent recording companies (Petersen, 2009). In the United States music market, independent recording companies control less than 20 percent of the market share. Due to their relatively little influence in the industry, most artists

shy away from as can be seen from the review of top 20 songs in the United States. From the review of the songs, only XL Recordings owns a song in the top 20. That alone shows the dominance of the majors and their subsidiaries in this market.

Copyright protection and management are important components of the business models of these companies. In the music industry, copyrights of sound recordings and music videos are owned by the recording companies (El Gamal, 2012). This gives them the power to structure and develop the product in a way that will be appealing to the music consumer. In this regard, these recording companies have a substantial influence on how the music should sound and how the video should be like. They go to an extent of investing millions of dollars to ensure they deliver a premium product for their consumers. As was noted in the introduction, the music industry is complex and unique. This is because unlike other industries, the music industry is both laterally and vertically organized. According to Leurdijk and Nieuwenhuis (2012), the vertical organisation refers to a pyramid that includes many artists at the bottom signed by several record labels at the middle which are under a single umbrella of a recording conglomerate. In terms of revenue, these conglomerates receive money through sales of music, royalties and advertisements. This money trickles down to the record labels and then to the artists. This way, the company is able to make profits while the artist is also able to benefit from his/her talent.

Frankfurt school argument of homogeneity and predictability of products through a popular culture is can be

seen in the lateral organisation of the industry. Popular culture or pop culture can be defined as a culture within the mainstream culture but presented differently in terms of ideas, perspectives and images (Leurdijk & Nieuwenhuis, 2012). In this regard, the music industry is horizontally organized in a way that it creates a kind of socio-cultural movements. That is, these recording companies aims at signing many music artists to their various labels so as they can control the flow of a certain music genre (product). In this regard, similar products are found within a particular label thus, the products of a single recording company are very predictable. For instance, analysis of the top songs in the United States showed that country music were largely distributed by labels under Sony Music Entertainment while Hip Hop and rap were distributed by labels under Universal Music Group. Citing Frankfurt school of thought, these companies aims at exploiting their dominance over a popular culture e.g. hip hop, country or rock music to maximize their revenues. This control or power is exercised through ownership of several copyrights from many artists, especially the popular ones.

From the two political economics theories, pop music is a term that is used to depict music as a commodity. Commoditization of music by developing a popular culture is the most critical way in which recording companies generates profits and build commercial enterprises (Leurdijk & Nieuwenhuis, 2012). The limitation of these theories in the analysis of the revenue models for music recording companies is that they do not explain the sustainability of the strategy. For instance, the creation of a cultural movement by these companies is usually

a gamble that sometimes fails to pay off. Furthermore, identification, organisation and control of the key players in the music industry are very difficult thus the industry is very unpredictable. The unpredictability of this industry thus goes against the claims of Frankfurt school of argument about predictability and homogeneity of products.

Conclusion

The main aim of this paper was to apply political economics theories to the music industry. It began by identifying key arguments of Karl Marx regarding hegemony and Frankfurt school of argument regarding predictability and homogeneity of the product. The author found that recording companies could be mentioned as the hegemons of the music industry since they had a controlling influence in the industry. Music artists could be referred to as the employees or proletarians according to Marx. On the other hand, the music industry did not conform to the argument of Frankfurt school of thought since it was found to be very uncertain and predictable while development of popular culture through music was a gamble.

References

1. Apple,. (2016). iTunes - Browse the top music downloads - Apple (CA). Retrieved 27 February 2016, from http://www.apple.com/ca/itunes/charts/songs/
2. Bates, T. (1975). Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony. Journal Of The History Of Ideas, 36(2), 351. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2708933
3. Cvetkovski, T. (2004). The Political Economy of the Music Industry: Its Rise and Stall. University of Adelaide. Retrieved from https://www.adelaide.edu.au/apsa/docs_papers/Others/Cvetkovski.pdf
4. Dewan, S., & Ramaprasad, J. (2014). Social media, traditional media and music sales. MIS Quarterly, 38(1), 102-121. Retrieved from https://www.mcgill.ca/desautels/files/desautels/social_media_traditional_media_and_mus ic_sales_-_dewan_and_ramaprasad_-_misq_2014_0.pdf
5. El Gamal, A. (2012). The Evolution of the M usic Industry in the Post- Internet Era. Claremont McKenna College. Retrieved from http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1501&context=cmc_theses
6. Leurdijk, A., & Nieuwenhuis, O. (2012). Statistical, Ecosystems and Competitiveness
   

Analysis of the Media and Content Industries: The music industry. Retrieved from http://is.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pages/ISG/documents/FINALMusicreportwithcovers_EB_Corre cted_02.pdf