Many artists stick to a certain genre/style of music for their entire careers. They do this because it is what appeals to their fans and what keeps sales up. Being a musician usually leads to the artist having to compromise their vision and creativity in order to make their music more sellable. Mainstream sells and if one chooses to pursue a direction that is not mainstream they risk alienating their audience and potentially losing a lot of revenue. Kanye West’s sudden change in musical style from mainstream to a darker, more auto tuned and electric sound is a serious risk for the alienation of his fans and the loss of sales and popularity of his music. His constant public outbursts do not help his image either. West’s new negative public image
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But, some of the most dramatic changes in his music happened after his mother passed away. He was very close to his mother (Donda West) and after she passed away many started noticing the changes in the music he was releasing. He started recording full albums with very heavy auto tune, and his music became much darker. One of the biggest changes to his style of music came with his sixth album named Yeezus; it was released in 2013. “The album tries a completely different dark sound, combining elements of Chicago Drill, Dancehall, Acid House, and Industrial music.” Some have even described it as “punk-rap” (Pratt). The music on this album was completely different from any other music he had previously released; it was dark and angry sounding nothing like any of West’s previous …show more content…
Interestingly, 30% of the artists state that the Internet is important to create and distribute their work” (Leenders et al). The Internet has become a very large avenue, if not the largest avenue for selling music. Social media is an extremely important form of marketing for artists which means that bad reviews over social media can be very damaging to sales. “Since the mid-2000s, social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have become an important component of people’s daily lives. Information technology (IT)-based broadcasting has been widely adopted by companies to market their products on social networking and micro-blogging sites” (Chen et al). An artist changing the style of their music can be damaging to sales, but not as damaging as people discussing the change of style negatively over social
But, some of the most dramatic changes in his music happened after his mother passed away. He was very close to his mother (Donda West) and after she passed away many started noticing the changes in the music he was releasing. He started recording full albums with very heavy auto tune, and his music became much darker. One of the biggest changes to his style of music came with his sixth album named Yeezus; it was released in 2013. “The album tries a completely different dark sound, combining elements of Chicago Drill, Dancehall, Acid House, and Industrial music.” Some have even described it as “punk-rap” (Pratt). The music on this album was completely different from any other music he had previously released; it was dark and angry sounding nothing like any of West’s previous …show more content…
Interestingly, 30% of the artists state that the Internet is important to create and distribute their work” (Leenders et al). The Internet has become a very large avenue, if not the largest avenue for selling music. Social media is an extremely important form of marketing for artists which means that bad reviews over social media can be very damaging to sales. “Since the mid-2000s, social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have become an important component of people’s daily lives. Information technology (IT)-based broadcasting has been widely adopted by companies to market their products on social networking and micro-blogging sites” (Chen et al). An artist changing the style of their music can be damaging to sales, but not as damaging as people discussing the change of style negatively over social