Mainstream Music Artist Research

The definition of mainstream is "belonging to or characteristic of a principal, dominant, or widely accepted group, movement or style." And so therefore, mainstream music is a type of music that is widely accepted and enjoyed by society in the zeitgeist. An exmaple of a newly discovered mainstream band is that of Florence and the Machine, which, although considered as the alternative music genre, has gained popularity quite quickly and the single "You Got the Love" holds itself at number 8, currently, in the chart.




http://florenceandthemachine.net/

Whilst looking at the official Florence and the Machine website, it is clear that there is a lot of information on the band. The well presented front page has a variety of menu options: home, news, blog, biography, media, gallery live, sign up, forum, "flotique" and members. "Flotique" is a play on words used to promote the selling of merchandise, so this essentially links the user to the merchandise page for Florence and the Machine. Moreover, the menu choice "media" links the user to a page in which the user can order various singles and the album, the choice being from HMV and iTunes. Therefore, downloads are included in this homepage. All in all, the website presents quite a lot of information and promotional points of interest for the user, insinuating that it is easily accessable. It is notable that there is also a music player on the website, which simply adds to the promotion of the band and album.




To continue, Florence and the Machine also have an official Facebook group in which 116,847 fans have joined, thus far. The page does not necessarily attempt to sell the user any merchandise, at least not on the front page. However, on the events page there are various advertisements of tours occuring in particular parts of the world such as Holland and Denmark. Whilst this does promote the band and notifies fans of any upcoming gigs (and thus, an opportunity of profit for the band), there are no advertisements of albums/singles or any other type of merchandise. The Myspace page, on the contrary, has very much advertisement of singles/album and merchandise.



Florence and the Machine's label is that of Island Records, which is owned by Universal Music Group, which is distributed through Sony Music Entertainment - a major conglomerate. The label's website has it's own personal page for Florence and the Machine, which advertises the band's official website, the album, a way to receive e-mails with information about the band and other artists that are similar to Florence and the Machine, including...: Ladyhawke, Frankmusik and New Young Pony Club.




Moreover, it is fairly notable that the albums sold on Amazon.com are £5.98 whereas on play.com, the albums are £8.95. However play.com also sells individual songs for 65p.