Genre Labeling In The Music Industry

Genre labeling is an approach to interconnecting record companies and its artists across the history of the process of music making, selling, and consuming. Generic Genre Labeling in the music industry led the creation of three primary musical styles - Folk Music, Art Music, and Popular Music which was able to maintain socially accepted music regulations. This prompted music fans to question the concept of mass culture and alienated subjectivity of musical styles. Artists like KD Lang, an influential singer-songwriter, was recognised for her authenticity and ability to self-produce her own genre and communal space. She was distinguished through her performative style that brought people together and develop social networks. Through the works
Setting the genre of Indie rock as an example to demonstrate the process of music selling to a target audience discloses the differentiation of people’s music taste based on their social classes. Moreover, it deploys how record companies uses music as a marketing tool. Record companies play a huge role on the decision-making when it comes to marketing as they are responsible in many aspects from album packaging to where should it be advertised. Modern as it seems, Indie rock, as a music category, has survived the industry with the help of the “Internet as a medium for dissemination of indie culture” (Hibbett, 2005). While the folk world is considered to be a working class, indie rock constitutes high art and differentiates good music with popular music. It is centred to aesthetics, developing an album that focuses on thematic narrative rather than producing a set of socially accepted music. Referring back to the process of music making, socially accepted music are those manufactured with the purpose to maintain the standards of streaming medium such as the radio and
Once the crowd-pleaser, KD Lang was the first lesbian singer to create transgressive lesbian space during her live concerts in the early 80’s. Not only was her sexuality the only attractive factor in her music, but also the lesbian icon’s performative style drives the audience to admire her more. This proves Frith’s theory that “a new genre is recognised by a new audience” as the singer-songwriter has maximised her potential to bring out individuals of both genders during her live concerts and create a space specifically made for them. A distinct element of KD Lang’s popularity was her music authenticity, evidently with the crowd she created and her musical sense through her song lyrics. Authenticity added value to her music just as the the message she wants to convey, authentifying that “new genres are born as the transgressions become