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What is Manufactured? |
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#1 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Bournemouth
Posts: 3,463
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What is Manufactured?
After starting on it in the Best of 2003 thread, I thought it was would be interesting to give its own thread.
Manufactured to me is, a group who went through auditions to get their place, and totally have an image waiting for them. I don't consider an act or group, who didn't audititon, who have consultants and other management to help them develop manufactured, its just development IMO, of course there are always exceptions to the rule, for instance its tough to say someone who came through a Reality tv show, who writes all his or her own music and has their own style already to be manufactured. And is manufactured a bad thing? It seems the term "manufactured" has a very loose meaning and everyone seems to have a different definition of when music is manufactured. |
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#2 |
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You have made some good points. I consider that people are using the word 'manufactured' because they want to complain about peole coming through TALENT shows but don't know how to do it.
There are quite a few talented people who have their own style and write a lot of their music (and/or lyrics) who have been in talent shows. It really is irrelevant whether they did auditions before a couple of record industry executives or before a few million people on television. Unless you get together at school (or college or whatever) most groups are formed by people auditioning, whether it is in someone's garage or in a studio. Actually when you think about it, I doubt whether there is any group or act which isn't manufactured to a certain extent. Surely all releases and publicity are planned by the record company or PR people. It doesn't just happen. Good post, Steve. Just editing to say that I've read the last few posts on the other thread and agree with Peej that it is more difficult to link "manufactured" and "solo singer". Yes you can dress/style a person but the singing remains basically the same. Ok so they try out different styles (hopefully) but someone's voice doesn't change (or does it?) |
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#3 |
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Banned User
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Here? In this girls' boarding school? With my reputation? What *were* they thinking?
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A very good point - it doesn't matter whether you get your deal through a televised audition process like Popstars, or whether you get your deal through gigs in front of A&R men in a smoky pub. The fact is, you got your deal because THE POWERS THAT BE saw you as a marketable proposition.
'Manufactured' in music is such an emotive term. There are virtually NO artists who go from unsigned to superstar status without changing their image/style/performance at all. It is just a factor of the business - you are never coming into it a finished article, but a diamond in the rough. Maybe you've got the image but not the talent. Maybe you've got the talent but not the image. Maybe you need everything tweaking. But you can never be so arrogant to think that you know better than your record company - just that you know DIFFERENT. Making qualitative judgements on the finished article is meaningless - do you honestly think that by signing the Cheeky Girls or Blazin' Squad, a record company is denying a 'real band' the chance of their shot? Bullshit. Just like Oasis single-handedly kept Creation in business through the mid-Nineties, spawning the money to give deals for acts like 18 Wheeler and Northern Uproar, the 'cheesy pop' you hate so much is what gives the company lattitude to sign The Darkness or The Thrills or Coldplay. Once you accept that novelty acts make money and acts pushed to kids make money, and that without that money the music industry wouldn't give their loose change to the bands *you* rate, then you'll stop minding so much. Whether you like it or not, Starsailor or Radiohead or BRMC simply don't have the mass appeal that the bubblegum pop you despise has - not even if it was shoved down our throats like the Gareth Gates' of this world. Honestly, there's no pleasing some people - if their favoured genre isn't the centre of the musical universe, then they're not getting their due. If they are, then the record companies are strip-mining their 'real music' and turning it into crap. Grow up and stop worrying about things you don't like. Believe me, they're not worrying about you. |
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#4 |
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Edinburgh
Posts: 854
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Manufactured = made and put in box
Unmanufactured = born and evolved |
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#5 |
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Banned User
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Quote:
Originally posted by woodpecker_pie At what point do you draw the line? A band who are discovered playing in a pub, and then taken under the wing of expert producers and stylists and publicists, and made into the next Coldplay - are they manufactured or 'born'? What about Will Young, who was 'made' on a TV show but whose new album is strongly driven by his own vision and writing as he has evolved as an artist - is he manufactured?Manufactured = made and put in box Unmanufactured = born and evolved It's all well and good making trite, throwaway comments, but you need to deconstruct them and work out what you mean. |
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#6 |
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 362
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Id say manufactured is when a record company for eg has a meeting and says 'Ok, this is what we want, hold auditions for people that fit what we want, and who will mould themselves according to our wishes'.
It doesnt make it less valid as music imo, just another way of marketing. However, as far as TV talent shows go, another example of a NOT manufactured artist. Alex Parks. Cant think of anyone more UNmanufactured. a previous unknown, no industry experience, loves singing,sang in a few pubs before, unique image all her own, unique singing style, all her own. NO record company execs sat down and 'designed' Alex Parks, She came 'as is' and the public liked her enough to vote her FA winner. |
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#7 |
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Banned User
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Quote:
Originally posted by halation And there you have my entire opinion boiled down into two wonderfully-written paragraphs. Manufactured is easy to define. But to define it without making a qualitative judgement is what is needed.
Id say manufactured is when a record company for eg has a meeting and says 'Ok, this is what we want, hold auditions for people that fit what we want, and who will mould themselves according to our wishes'. It doesnt make it less valid as music imo, just another way of marketing. |
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#8 |
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Posts: n/a
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There are some nice long words in this thread!
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