Star Image

Star Image Theories

Stars are extremely important to the music industry, they ensure a long careers and guarantee sales. Which is why it is always important to present a certain image of the star as being someone special, someone who the audience can emulate, look up to and desire. Creating influential stars who the audience look to model behaviours of has always been important. Painting certain genres of celebrity in a certain light, for example the norm for a rock artist would be to be portrayed as extremely rebellious, in order to fit their music style and what their fans might expect. Members of pop boy bands being shown as heterosexual and highly available in order to sell more records to idealist young female fans, as with the case with many artists such as George Michael.

However in more resent years this idea of the untouchable superstar has been deconstructed by shows such as 'The X Factor' giving rise to the new ideas of stars just being normal people. Perhaps killing our faith in such stars and so the music industry as a whole. However it has been shown that conversely we seem to desire that 'normal' lifestyle more, as it is selling something ordinary and achievable.

Goodwin's theory on stars states:

-The creation of character identities for stars provides a point of identification for the audience/spectator, which is especially important when lyrics often lack depth.
-The construction of stars is central to the economics of the music industry - stars guarantee sales and long careers.
-Star loyalty is a key ingredient - fans are loyal to the star.
-The audience knows its own tastes but the music industry has long been able to work around this - The construction of stars is one way they do this.
-The record industry is very dependent on stars - many record companies rely on a few big stars (or even just one) to provide stability.

Richard Dyer's theory originally on cinematic stars can be used to explain music stars too and it states:

-Stars are a phenomenon of consumption - that is they are a result of our modern culture of consumerism
-There are a range of audience-star relationships

• Emotional Affinity- Most common, where the audience feels a loose attachment to the artist
• Self Identification- When the audience member places themselves in the same situation and persona as the star
• Imitation- This is most common with young audience members and takes it beyond ordinary. The audience member sees the star as a model of what they should do in their life and imitate it.
• Projection- This is the extreme version of imitation; when the audience member's behaviour becomes more that simple mimicking of clothing, hairstyle etc.