Music Question

"How global is the appeal of your three main texts?" 

Lady Gaga, Radiohead and Nirvana all had a different approach to distributing their album globally, this could be from the material of the product, the promotion of the album that as produced and the use of technology. 

Radiohead took a different approach when releasing their album "King Of Limbs' they did not produce a physical copy of this album, and used a 'download only' approach from this album, this gained them global appeal as from the previous album 'in rainbows'  you were allowed to pay whatever you wanted for the album. As they do not have a record label and produced the album without being signed, they did not have the funding to create a physical copy, therefore as many copies as they wanted could be sold. However, Nirvana only produced 35,000 copies of CD/vinyl for the UK when they release Nevermind, as a download option wasn't available at the current time. Lady Gaga released singles from her album 'Born This Way' before the album was released, this was also available to buy in a range of ways from download to physical copies. 

Lady Gaga has a set theme for her albums being heavily focused on the appeal for the love of fame, but having songs that deal with subjects such as sexuality, religion, freedom, feminism and individualism, as she is a mainstream hybrid artist, she aims to target a mainstream audience, who listen to the more modern style of music dance-pop. Gaga also includes a narrative to her music videos, this has a global appeal as her quirky style and strong views are portrayed through the videos, she does this to gain global audience appeal and get a reaction from what she does by creating a story. Nirvana of the other hand had a 'don't care' attitude to their music and they way it was produced, compared to Lady Gaga's high budget, music videos that show a narrative, these videos appeal to wider global audience due to the more modern style showing a production and dancers. This attracts more people to watch the video and gains Gaga global appeal as it attracts a wider audience. Nirvana chose to just take a laid back approach when creating a video and were more focused on the music in which they were producing, this also gave them a global appeal to a younger audience, as in the their video for 'smells like teen spirit' portrays a rebellious look and casual attitude. The release of Radiohead's Lotus flower was the only one from 'king Of Limbs' to have a music video too it, this music video had a low budget production that would have an appeal more to the fans of the rock genre rather than showing a high budget pop video like Lady Gaga's music videos. 

The record label itself also plays a huge part in promotion to gain global appeal, Nirvana were first signed to an independent record label called sub-pop who did not have the funding to make the band go global and produce records that would reach a global market outside of the US. They produced there first album 'Bleach' which was popular in the US, but did not appeal to a global audience. Geffen the signed nirvana to promote the band and there second album "Nevermind' this was to gain global appeal by making Nirvana go on promotional tours, appeal on TV shows, such as performing live on Jonathan Ross show and do various interviews.  It took 5 months for the album to reach number one after global tours and increasing the target audience for the grunge genre they had created. As Radiohead did not have a record label after producing 6 albums whilst signed, the chose to go independent  and produce an album without using global marketing and promotion, they relied on their fans and the website for promotion. 

Lady gaga targets a global audience by using technology, she has used various social media sites to gain global appeal, she uses twitter to interact with her 18,198,577 followers which enhances her fame.