Keith Negus - synthetic and organic stars

Keith Negus theorised the ideology of creating and producing pop stars. There are two distinct ways of thinking about artists within the music industry. These ideologies shape the artist's image and determine the success of their career by the way they are marketed towards specific target audiences. Organic ideology of creating is an artist who is independent, talented and works writes their own songs. Whereas synthetic ideology of creating is the type of artist who is manufactures and controlled to create an image, not writing their own songs and target a commercial audience.

A synthetic artist I have researched into is Nicki Minaj

As an artist Minaj is a combination of music and image constructed for her target audience, creating a manufactured, fictional persona. According to Negus the artist's image is constructed by the record company and they will be given a short time to prove their success before other combinations will be tried out. Minaj signed with Young money and Cash money and has been a huge success since she was reconstructed to 'pop' music and became more mainstream. She has also collaborated with artists similar like Rhianna, Drake and Lil Wayne to widen their target audience and construct a life style between these artists.
The synthetic ideology of creativity says there is an emphasis given to single sales and promoting first albums as a lot of these artists tend to be one hit wonders where money and fame is channelled in to their songs to get it popular and then dropped. Minaj was treated like this at first however she has continued her success and become a very well known achieving artist, due also to her song-writing and unique image. She is defiantly aimed at a younger, less sophisticated audience who look up to her and aspire to be her.
Her profits are generated by immediate, short term strategies by her record label such as touring, selling products and her songs which quickly go out of date after being overplayed on all the pop radio stations.

An organic artist I have researched into is Adele
Adele is a more natural artist, she is more of a realistic portrayal of her true self; however obviously the Adele we see as an audience is constructed to an extent. She has been nurtured and enhanced by the record company, still keeping her as she is but tweaking curtain things to make her more glamorous and successful in order to appeal to a wider audience and create a celebrity aura. She was signed by XL Recordings aged 18 and straight away was a great success. She has been given time to evolve and progress through her career much like other organic artists; this is because the is given a lot of control over her career and has the ability to ride her success purely on her talent of being an vocally gifted, singer-songwriter, musician and multi-instrumentalist. Both her albums 19 and 21 have been a globally award winning success, emphasis has been given to album sales and the construction of a successful back catalogue creating the most success possible. Her target audience is very diverse, ranging from young audiences to much older, more sophisticated consumers.
Her profits are mainly generated by long term strategies helped by her record label, such as her global tour, very successful albums and promotions, for example her synergy with the newest James Bond, creating a song for the film called Skyfall.