Ryan Hartling

[Ryan Hartling]

After a lot of thought, and not much progress, the best way I can describe my topic is just music today. I tried to think of something else after seeing a couple others doing topics on media and such, but couldn't think of much.

A general explanation of it would be the content of lyrics, videos, and overall messages that are sent to millennials today. I wanted to pick a topic I already knew a lot about, and this one seemed to spark some immediate ideas in my head.

[Fred Cooksey]

Hi Ryan. One possibility might be to examine changing attitudes toward "ownership" and intellectual property. Young people have changed the way music is purchased, and thus also how it is produced and marketed. Philosophically, I think it's an interesting change -- that many people now have no qualms about file-sharing, even when it means that the artist doesn't receive any payment. There's a moral dimension to this that I think is intriguing (I'm not passing judgment, just trying to think about various ways to approach the topic).

Does anyone else have any ideas for Ryan? Let's try to give him options that are connected to music but different from what I'm proposing above....

[Paige Dolinski]

The first question that comes to mind for me would be the genre of music. I think it's really interesting how different pop music was during the gen xers to today (ie the Beatles and lady gaga - what a chasm of difference there), in not only the content of the lyrics but the way musi is produced now with most artists (synthezation.)

So perhaps it'd be good to pick a genre (whether it be pop or punk or rock) and analyze the differences between a song between the two generations and the production/instrumentals in those two songs...

Another idea that may be more specific would be to focus on just one aspect of music that's changed. The way it's portrayed on mainstream tv channels, the instrumentals, artist portrayal, etc - to just choose one and how it differs between gen x and millennials.

[Louise]

What about music as rebellion? Like, the kind of music that people listen to as a way to show that they're "off the mainstream" and "thinking for themselves" and what the differences are in how rebellion is portrayed. You could also look at statistics of how many people are listening to this totally certainly not mainstream music to see how widespread the ideas are. It would be a way of looking at social norms and the changing standards of things, through music.
I'm not sure how much sense I've just made, I can clarify stuff if you'd like.

[Kevin Sylvester]

Since it seems like you changed the focus of your paper a bit, I wanted to get back to you and finish what I was going to tell you in class.

I was in a metal band at the end of high school (just before the internet) and another band in my early/mid 20s (a few years after the internet).

The difference in those 5 or so years (remember, I’m tail end of gen x) made such a difference. The tools that millenials have in regards to internet communication means I’m not earning fans 1 at a time in my local area. Fans across the world can now access mp3s and news and pictures and forums without having to be physically near a band; we were more successful in 1 year just being able to communicate.

Bands were swapping CDs & gigs. We would find a band in a place like upstate New Hampshire, talk online, trade music, play their CDs for friends and get them a gig down here and they would do the same for us, fans benefited from now having a larger catalog of music to choose from.

It was a really cool scene but one of the things that I remember most was the great music that I would have never heard if I was born a generation earlier.



hope that helps... I can tell you tons more if you want.




-Kevin

[Paige Dolinski]

So I was investigating information on advertising in media for my topic and found this looong journal article involving media, but mainly focusing on music and thought of you. It talks about how advertising has become an outlet for bands to get their music out and instead of having "number of records sold" through the output of "radio hits," what is considered successful now is how many times a band/song has appeared in movies/tv shows/ads, etc, and how big corporations (i.e, McDonalds, Pepsi) are using big name musicians (rappers, etc) to continually advertise their products by paying them to mention them in their songs...

The article is called "Advertising and the Conquest of Culture" and you can find it in the Academic Search Premier database...

I know this is last minute (as the first draft is due tomorrow), but if you need it for the second draft/final copy it's there, if it's at all helpful/pertaining to your thesis.

[Ryan Hartling]

I actually finished my draft about 30 minutes ago from the time of this post, but I'll definitely look into it for my final draft. Thanks.

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