EMI - Electric & Musical Industries

EMI are one of the big 4 record companies along with; Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. A lot of big artists are signed with EMI, people like Robbie Williams and Katy Perry being key artists.

EMI has a list of these set up on their website for you to view, it sends you directly to the band's website, that's if they have one. Their website is quite a good way for their signed artists to get publicity because they put news on their website about their artists in a running newsfeed. Looking at the news it is bias towards their acts, obviousley they aren't going to slander themselves but thing likes Katy Perry getting cut from Sesame Street for being 'too low cut' doesn't feature on the site. There is immediate evidence of them being bias towards themselves when they talk about EMI Music. "EMI Music is one of the world's leading music companies, home to some of the most succesful and best known recording artists." When EMI describe their acts with that statement it shows why people would want to get signed to such a big and famous record company. The website itself seems rather basic, but the EMI logo in the top corner is what matters, for in media the simple use of a logo can mean more than an actual products capability. eg. The Apple iPad isn't the best in the market but the Apple logo makes people want it. The website works well as many of their stories are cross media, so Gorillaz working with Microsoft and Katy Perry on YouTube. The colours of the website also work well, red and black on a white background is simplistic but easy to see, so people will read the website.

The artists aren't all big names, there are quite a few artists that not many people would have heard of if they didn't listen outside of the Top 40. EMI is very much for the mass market, it has a range of genres signed to it's company, from Metal to Afro Beat. There is a page on the website showing all artists but on the homescreen to the left is a column and in that are the names of EMI's biggest selling artists and most popular, clicking on the tag then takes you to a bit of EMI's website where you see all the latest news about that artist. A lot of artists are with a record label which is under the EMI Label, such as The Beatles with Apple Records. The artists and EMI work together to publicise each other, EMI has massive pieces about a popular artist on their website and the artist has the EMI logo on their Cd. It seems unfair for EMI but when you think more people buy a Cd of an EMI act than people looking at the EMI website it seems to be fairer.

My favourite EMI artist is Iron Maiden, I'm not a huge Maiden fan but I very much like them. When I purchased their new album I bought it from iTunes and so didn't see the actual Cd and only looking back on iTunes today realised it says that this copyright of sound is owned by EMI Ltd. I think EMI will be losing out on publicity on acts now the internet is bigger for music sales, the part that mentioned EMI on iTunes was on a readmore so you don't immediately see it. I don't think the rise of downloads will affect EMI too much due to the fact they still make money from their big selling acts and EMI being a well known name artists will still want to sign to them.

Picture Source: http://routenote.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/emi-logo.png