How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Stars are manufactured by the music industry to serve a purpose — to make money out of audiences, who respond to various elements of a star persona by buying records and becoming fans. Stars are the cogs around which a plethora of record company gears find themselves turning. Record companies nurture and shape their stars — as the PopStars/Pop Idol process has shown us. They tend to manufacture what they think audiences want, hence the 'photocopied' nature of many boy bands, teen bands etc. However, there are whole markets out there who are not convinced by the hype and don't want to spend their money on blandness. The record industry also has a duty to provide bands/artists who are perceived as 'real' (for 'real, maybe read 'ugly' or unpolished) for these audiences. Stars can also be created by this route. Oasis perhaps? Or U2, whose slow rise to stardom took a decade. Pop stars, whatever their nature, are quite clearly the product of their record company — and they must be sold.
Dyer says


A star begins as a "real" human, possessing gender & race characteristics, and existing against a socio-historic background. The star transformation process turns them into a construct, but the construct has a foundation in the real. We tend to read them as not-entirely-fictional, as being are very much of their time and culture, the product of a particular generation. Stars provide audiences with a focus for ideas of 'what people are supposed to be like' (eg for women, thin/beautiful) - they may support hegemony by conforming to it (thin/beautiful) or providing difference (fat/still lovable). Much of the discussion of stars in celebrity magazines is about how stars compare to the current hegemonic ideal, and how we compare to the stars ("Meg Ryan's fab new haircut"/"How you can look like Meg Ryan").


Dyer says

In these terms it can be argued that stars are representations of persons which reinforce, legitimate or occasionally alter the prevalent preconceptions of what it is to be a human being in this society. There is a good deal at stake in such conceptions. On the one hand, our society stresses what makes them like others in the social group/class/gender to which they belong. This individualising stress involves a separation of the person's "self" from his/her social "roles", and hence poses the individual against society. On the other hand society suggests that certain norms of behaviour are appropriate to given groups of people, which many people in such groups would now wish to contest (eg the struggles over representation of blacks, women and gays in recent years). Stars are one of the ways in which conceptions of such persons are promulgated.



Organic- One of the main points that make now is everyone so appealing is the fact that they are a “real” organic band. They put themselves together when they met in school and not by a record company. They write about things that are real to them and do not have someone writing there lyrics for them. To make them look organic in the promo we have them walking around the area which they are from, which was made famous by other organic bands such as The Smiths in Manchester and the Arctic Monkeys in Sheffield. In the digi pack to show there organic nature in the inlays we have used a montage of images from both the shoot day and there private life. This was to show that although they are a band they are real people to. This gives the audience a voyeuristic feeling as they can look into the lives of the band and feel as if they know the band better, but there is still separation as they know the band knows nothing about them. In the poster there is no gloss, it’s very honest and down to earth. The band has been shot in an alleyway which is somewhat like a gutter which was to reinforce there saying that they will go from the gutter to the stars.



Sexual magnetism- The members of “Now is everyone” are quite appealing to there target audience, this will be another reason why girls will become fans of the band. To make the most of this in the promo we have made the band (bar the lead singer) seem quite distant form the audience as there is nothing people want more then what they can’t have. This was done by them not making eye contact with the camera for long periods of time and also when they walk up to the camera it jump cuts before they get really close. In the poster we have the band all leaning up against the wall in an almost rebellious manner, according to Richard Dyer’s star image theory rebellion is one of the things which create a “star”.

Youthful- This band although young they have already managed to reach a level of stardom. This has enabled them to be very inspirational to many other young upcoming Indie rock bands. We have shown that they are youthful throughout the products by the way they are styled, with there hair and clothing strongly representing the young Indie rock genre. This enables there target audience (who are likely dressed very similarly to them) to feel more connect to the band as they feel they are the same as them.




Success against the odds- “Now is everyone” is a band in one of the most competitive genres of music for young artists. They have been able to get a name for themselves, won many music competitions and have even performed at a music festival. To portray the fact that they are succeeding against the odds in the promo we used the special effect of having the band in black and white and then having them come into colour. In the digi pack we have a mix of pictures of them performing and them just hanging out. This shows that they are just a teenage rock group and that although they are “normal” teens, they are succeeded against the odds.




Craftsman- One of the major strong points of “Now is everyone” is that they are all talented artists in there own right. I have tried to emphasize this by using lots of close up shots of the band playing their instruments, which are clearly worn and slightly battered and not brand new. This is to show that they have been grafting on these instruments and these are the instruments that have toured with them. This is also shown in the digi pack as in the montage of pictures there are images of them playing there instruments at gigs, parties’ and in the studio.