Star Image

Stars and Stardom:

• In order to understand the relationship between the music industry and its audiences, it is important to consider the roles of music stars 
• The term 'star ' refers to the semi- mythological set of meanings constructed around music performers in order to sell the performer to a large and loyal audience. 

Richard Dyer 

• Dyer has written extensively about the role of stars in film, tv and music 
• Irrespective of the medium, stars have some key features in common:
• A star is an image, not a real person, that is constructed (as any other aspect of fiction is) out of a range of materials (e.g. advertising, magazines etc as well as films (music))
• Stars are commodities produced and consumed on the strength of their meanings 

• Stars depend upon a range of subsidiary media- magazines, tv, radio, the internet, in order to construct an image for themselves which can be marketed to their target audience 
• The star image is made up of a range of meanings which are attractive to the target audiences. 
• Fundamentally, the star image is incoherent that is complete and 'open'. Dyer says that this is because it is based upon two key paradoxes. 
• Simultaneously the star is present in our lives and absent 

common features of music stardom: 

• Youthfulness 
• Rebellion 
• Sexual magnetism 
• An anti- authoritarian attitude 
• Originally 
• Creativity/ talent 
• Aggression/ anger 
• A disregard for social values relating to drugs, sex and polite behaviour 
• Conspicuous consumption, of sex, drugs and material drugs 
• Success against the odds. 

The Star Image:

• The incoherence of the star image ensures that audiences continually strive to 'complete' or to 'make sense' of the image 
• This means that fans will go away determined to continue consuming the star in order to carry on attempting to complete their image. 

As you can see, these photos are taken of Beyoncé in 1997,2004,2009 and 2017. These photos of Beyonce over the last 22 years show 3 clear stages in her image. She began in the band Destiny's child where she was more covered up and it was more about the music and exposing their sound to the world, this is clear to see by her clothing in the first image as she is wearing bright colours but is covered up and is also smiling. When she went solo after Destiny's child, she began to sexualise herself and felt she had to expose her body in order to start gaining a fan base as a solo star. In this 6 year stage, she gained a huge following and sold millions of albums and millions of dollars and became a worldwide star. Now in 2017, she is a well known star and does not need to build up her star image anymore so she is more reserved with her clothing and is a mother so does not need to sexualise herself as much as she knows she still has a massive fan base and her records will still sell. The more reserved look in present today also shows signs of maturity and a potentially a start to becoming a new artist with a new image and making a different style of music.