It’s a pleasure for me to welcome Dr Paul James, author of Experiencing Gigli with Quality Audio. This is his first guest post here.
Musicians have had fans since time immemorial. One fan was particularly important historically, the patron, as they allowed some musicians to focus their efforts on making music. Changes in culture, business and technology have shaped how fans experience music. Fans frequently desire to know their chosen artists. By following them on social media they can feel part of their favourite artists’ lives. In their virtual relationship fans can identify with their favorite artists and enjoy the sense of interaction. The more a musician shares about themselves, the closer fans can feel to them.
Tweets provide fans with a feeling of talking directly with an artist.
With social media, artists have an opportunity to grow and reach new audiences to a degree that was previously unimaginable. Social media can facilitate fan participation and interaction and provide an income stream for the band. Fandom (enthusiastic fans) usually involves economic exchange. While not every aspect of being a fan costs money, influence is exerted to train fans into compliant consumers with messages such as:
Buy a CD. Buy some vinyl. Buy a deluxe CD–vinyl–digital combo. Come to a concert. Come to a convention. Sign up for a streaming service. Don’t forget to purchase some limited-edition merch. Here’s a chance for a meet and greet.
Skillful marketing encourages fans to buy now and to buy more and thereby be a musician’s biggest fan. Fans can be influenced to become emotionally engaged in a product. Fan emotion is a visibly marketable commodity as fans who scream are not doubted as fans. Taylor Swift’s social media channels frequently feature photos and videos of fans screaming and sobbing while listening to her new music for the first time.
Social media can give artists an aura of realness and create intimacy by encouraging what may be perceived as authentic interaction with fan-directed communication. A recent example of this is fan engagement in Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. Swift’s status is the perpetual victim in the eyes of her adoring fans. Tweets provide fans with a feeling of talking directly with the artist.
Following musicians for years can engender a feeling of knowing them.
Being a celebrity can propel an artist to economic success as Taylor Swift demonstrates with over 90 million followers.
The relationship between fans and music celebrities is a carefully curated illusion.
Celebrity musicians need fans to believe in the potential for reciprocation so fans continue seeking their attention. Fans of Taylor Swift engage in processes of imagination and negotiation to develop a connection with her image. Swift wants her fans to believe everything they see from her is real. This performed intimacy, authenticity and access turned Swift into a consumable persona. Swift was 16 years old when she released her self-titled album that was filled with songs about young love and heartbreak. The intensely personal nature of her songs makes her popular with many who can relate to her. Her music is strongly autobiographical.
Through her music, Swift depicts herself as a figure upon whom her fans can project their own experiences, especially those tied to the process of growing up. She propagates the illusion of wide access via her free, handpicked “secret sessions” and “backstage meet and greets”. For Swift, the utility derived is the maintenance of her “authentic” image as a “best friend” to her fans. This is central to her marketable persona. Swift and her team carefully cultivate the labour and loyalty of their fans and police and discipline fan behaviours. Swift has strict rules that fans must follow, not only after they are chosen for an interaction, but to remain in the running for a future opportunity.
Many Swifties are less interested in Swift’s music than her role as an imagined friend. She is perceived as a figure that they need to actively be there for. Dedicated fandom lies in supporting someone who doesn’t know you, yet you think you know them.
Swift is aware that many of her fans are willing to purchase whatever she puts in front of them and she levers this by directly marketing large amounts of merchandise to them. She does not force her fans to purchase these albums and merchandise but rather creates an environment in which the process of purchasing becomes a part of the overall fandom experience. Just as listening to an album or attending a concert can help fans feel closer to Swift, so too can purchasing merchandise, especially when there is a slight chance that doing so can bring attention from their favourite celebrity. Swift has been accused of price gouging in what she has charged to attend her concerts.
Midnight Oil are very different artists from Taylor Swift, and it might be argued that a comparison is unfair. Yet points of contrast and difference between Swift and Midnight Oil can provide valuable insights into fan and musician behaviour and fans’ experience of music. Swift fans and Swift herself are polarised. She is perceived by many as the greatest songwriter of her generation, a feminist who isn’t afraid to be successful or even misunderstood — because everything she does is for her fans. She is also seen as a ruthless capitalist, and huge narcissist hiding behind a fake persona. While it is true the perspective people have on Swift as a person can affect how they judge her, that is not the only way to understand the music fan experience.
By examining Midnight Oil we can appreciate a different kind of fan behaviour and music experience. Midnight Oil has always eschewed a carefully crafted persona. Their formative shows have been described as wall to “wall to sweat and mayhem” but in a good way. They secured their fan base by putting on memorable shows in surfer bars and hotels. They quickly gained a reputation for being manic, a fearsome live act. The “Oils” were a visceral experience, where the extreme physicality of the performances (including Peter Garrett’s unique stomp and ‘helicopter’ dancing) was an extension of the sharp angles and energy of the music. They used unusual chord progressions in some songs. The bass hit fans like a shockwave. Garrett sings with urgency and sporadically hectors the crowd as they are roused into frenzied dancing, some even sing along. Oil fans have tended to be energetic, buoyed by the euphoria of being in their presence. Unlike the separation inherent in celebrity and fan. The Oils reject the cult of the individual. For all participating a Midnight Oil concert was a cause for celebration, for the music and also the community ethos involved in being together. There is also something primal in Midnight Oil, the music at times weaves a spell like a cracking good yarn, and it draws you in.
The Oils communicated their messages with solid conviction; they were never “radio fodder” or “cheesy pop”. They succeeded despite little initial acceptance from mainstream media. They were genuine radicals, theirs was a socially conscious rock, concerned with encouraging thought about issues that matter.
Midnight Oil’s music is an occasion to be mindful rather than dwell in a selfish consciousness. The Oils had a distain for “weasel words” and roused listeners against apathy and indifference. In their songs, they translate ‘issues’ into personal feelings: hope, desire, anger, and despair. All of their music is about passion and humanity. To have a musical cut through, to make their point the Oils also make a good tune. Sprinted drumming, a rousing melody, and a good guitar part are combined with Garrett’s raw and earnest singing. The Oils ‘Don’t Want To Be The One’ (Place without a Postcard) in a culture where people are too frequently hedonistic and self-satisfied. They call for everybody’s accountability and commitment. In their songs, they speak out about corporate greed and environmental vandalism.
Ticket and mechanise prices for Midnight Oil were within reach for most fans. The monetisation of the fan experience with the Oils not only differs in scale from Taylor Swift’s, but the focus engendered with fans is quite different. Midnight Oil had released 15 albums over four decades when they began their final worldwide tour. While the Oils are overshadowed by the colossal audience numbers achieved by Swift, they had 77 sold-out concerts across 16 countries and played for 500,000 people. Throughout the decades the Oil’s devoted fan base reveled in the communal experience of their brash “tell it like it is” rock show. Erica Murdoch sums up the fan experience of Midnight Oil:
We loved them. Whenever possible we went to see them. We didn’t fancy any of them; it wasn’t about them. It was purely about the music and the energy and the fun and the spectacle. https://thepelvicfloorcoffeeclub.com/2019/03/14/midnight-oil/
Many Oils fans are happy to let the music do the talking. Despite their success, the band don’t look to be anything more than they have always been. The band members are not celebrities. Their creed is to be honest, simple and powerful. While the term has slipped out of common parlance, the Oils reinvigorate the Australian spirit of ‘fair dinkum’. They abhor obfuscation. Fans admire the band members for their passion and dedication to causes not as personalities. They are loved for their eternal youthful ardour and their ability to generate excitement. Their music is often confronting yet at the same time gifts us with hopefulness.
Understandably, musicians might seek to emulate Taylor Swift and achieve a colossal following and staggering wealth. Midnight Oil demonstrates that there is another path. Mainstream success can still be achieved without using the celebrity model. Units sold and consumption were not their primary matrix. Artistic integrity was a key principle for the Oils as they sought to inspire and foster a more enlightened way for people to live. Midnight Oil also has the rare quality of not being mired in the here now, they have a vision that remains relevant.
Update 22/5/24: and now there’s this …..
I did get to read Paul’s fascinating book, courtesy of his publisher Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Here’s my earlier post about it:
Music & Hi-fi Appreciations 