Creating a Star

Today we discussed how a star is created through or with the help of music videos. The image of a star is defined as how they are perceived by the audience; their fan base, the clothes they wear and their ideology.

A Star Vehicle is generally a tv show, film, advert, other music artist, newspapers, album artists, live performances etc that are used to promote the artist. An example of this is Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey's television show "Newlyweds" on MTV. This shows airing happened to coincide with the release of Jesica's new album and the production of Nich Lachey's music video, launching his new career. This meant there were newspaper and website reviews, the television show itself, adverts and other famous people talking about the two and promoting interest in Nick's solo career and the new video which had been shown in production during "Newlyweds."

Star Vehicles can also help artist make the move from one part of the industry to another, or one image to another, for example we looked at how Robbie Williams made the move and the change in image from a boyband with connotations of being manufactured and being over post-produced to being a solo artist who became known for his "bad boy" image involving drugs and women but also beinbg credited as having more talent due to his co-writing of material.

We also looked at Star Power which takes three different forms, Economic power, Artistic Power and Ideological Power.

Economic Power consists of the earning that a star makes through their music, advertising, videos, touring, any lines such as clothing and perfume that they endorse or create. in general, those with more power also have more freedom than others and may be able to expoloit others in society and/or cause some sort of ideological following or dominate the market.

Artistic Power as mentioned before can take place when an artist either becomes successfull enough for their management to give them more control of their image and style and how it appears in the media i.e. endorsements, publicity, music videos etc Someone with a great deal of artistic power in their work is Bjork who has remained in creative control of her career right through from the 80's when she was in the sugarcubes. This has meant she has total control of the interviews she does, the clothes she wears, her style, her videos and all publicity and live performance.

Still to come as we have run out of time....ideology