Digital technology has rapidly increased overtime and has impacted many artists in the music industry by enabling them to interact and appeal to their audience through promotion and marketing with the use of digital technology.
Lady Gaga could be considered as an artist who makes the most use of digital technology. Due to marketing through the means of social media such as Twitter and Facebook she has developed into a brand. She has a huge following from her fans also known as 'little monsters' as she calls them who would interact with her on a daily basis through social networks such as Twitter which generated her approximately $30million last year. This too enables her to market/promote herself as her 'tweets' are read by her 33,610,937 followers on twitter making her he second most followed. Her fans are also gratified socially on her youtube channel where an interview from the most used search engine in the world;Google reveals she had 54,000 questions asked by fans over a period of 3days. Her relationship with her fans is described as 'parasocial' where her fans know a great deal about her than she does about them , she often thanks fans and answers the many questions she gets asked and is grateful for their contribution to her success as without them and also her record label she would not be as successful. From the interview by Google we also learn that she is one of the most searched artists ever which shows how popular she is and how through Google the publicity she gets is free.
Youtube, Itunes and Spotify are very useful to an artist and their audience as it allows people to download and listen to her music instantly through the internet. Over 3 and a half days she was asked 54000 question via her Youtube channel also giving her fans social gratification as they are able to find out more about their favourite artist whilst listening to her music. Since 'The fame' was released in 2008 it has sold 12 million copies world wide consisting of mp3 downloads and WAV download.
Similarly Radiohead have been more successful as a result of digital technology. When releasing 'The king of limbs' they promoted via the bands website as the band had no record label and self-released the album making digital technology such as the internet even more important. On the 14th february 2011 the band announced the release of the new album, the 19th february on the website. However the promotional video 'lotus flower' and the album were released a day earlier- a decision made by the band themselves. On the 18th the only available copy of the album was a MP3 download or a WAV priced at just £6 from their website as a result of this the internet(digital technology) was the most important factor when selling this album. Radiohead were not able to sell this through itunes etc as the price was too low, however it did have a set price unlike their previous album which was available at what the customer wanted to pay for it. Later the physical edition of the album was released through the bands TickerTape imprint on XL, showing that the internet was not the only fact contributing the success of 'The king of limbs' and a small record label like XL was useful and was able to distribute the physical edition well and on the 9th of May 2011 a wider digital release 'newspaper edition' was released via AWAL.
However unlike Lady Gaga and Radiohead, Nirvana was unable to access as much digital technology. As their album 'Nevermind' was released in 1991 the internet wasnt common and very few were able to access it, but satellite channels were available and instead of promoting through social networking sites, or youtube they performed on channels such as MTV and their music videos were shown around the world. Aswell as satellite channels they always appeared on programmes such as top of the pops and The Jonathan Ross show. Even though the band are no longer together they still promote their music through social networking sites and by using Youtube and Spotify etc. they are able to gain new fans as a new generation can listen to their old music, 'Nevermind' is available to download instantly. This may have contributed to the fact they have now sold 30 million copies. On the 20th anniversary of the album they repackaged the album and marketed it as a special anniversary copy through social media, satellite channels and by replaying music videos.
