- In order to understand the relationship between the music industry and its audiences, it is important to consider the roles of music stars
- The term 'star ' refers to the semi- mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience.
Richard Dyer
- Dyer has written extensively about the role of stars in film, tv and music
- Irrespective of the medium, stars have some key features in common:
- A star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g. advertising, magazines etc as well as films (music))
- Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings
- Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media- magazines, tv, radio, the internet, in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audience
- The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences.
- Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent that is complete and 'open'. Dyer says that this is because it is baed upon two key paradoxes.
- Simultaneously the star is present in our lives and absent
Some common values of music stardom:
- Youthfulness
- Rebellion
- Sexual magnetism
- An anti- authoritarian attitude
- Originally
- Creativity/ talent
- Aggression/ anger
- A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour
- Conspicuous consumption, of sex, drugs and material drugs
- Success against the odds.
The Star Image:
- The incoherence of the star image ensures that audiences continually strive to 'complete' or to 'make sense' of the image
- This means that fans will go away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image.
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