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Human brands in the music industry use self-presentation tactics on social media to manage audience impressions. This practice has led to many posts asking followers to adopt behaviors favoring the human brand. However, its effectiveness in leveraging relevant performance metrics for musicians outside social media, such as popularity in specialized media, music sales and number of contracted concerts, needs further exploration. This study aims to reveal the effect of impression management tactics conveyed on social media on the market performance of musicians’ human brands.

Secondary data research classifies 5,940 social media posts from 11 music artists into self-presentation tactics (self-promotion, exemplification, supplication and ingratiation). It shows their predictions on three market performance metrics in an annual balanced panel study.

Impression management tactics via posts on social media are mostly self-promotion, improving the musicians’ market performance by increasing the number of contracted concerts. Conversely, ingratiation generated the most positive effect on the musician’s popularity but reduced music sales. Besides lowering the musicians’ popularity, exemplification also reduced the number of contracted concerts, while the supplication had no significant effect.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the research is the first to use social media postings of musicians’ official human brand profiles based on self-presentation typologies as a complete impression management tool. Furthermore, it is the first to test the effects of these posts on market performance metrics (i.e. outside of social media) in a longitudinal study.

The policies in creative and cultural industries (CCIs) are often based on an implicit assumption that work in the cultural and creative sectors is ‘good work’ and dominant discourses tend to over-celebrate entrepreneurship. The authors argue that enough attention has been paid to the real work in CCIs. The stake is to better address the symptoms observed for a sustainable and inclusive economy in the CCIs. Through the entrepreneurship-as-practice perspective, the authors document the professionalisation difficulties in music sector, with a qualitative study in a French city, with a particular focus on the marginalisation experienced by the young artists. With the identification of their work specificities and the tendencies for the twenty-first century, the authors point out the diversity of the tasks, the multi-activity and collective practices and the need for some innovative support organisational forms to develop training and skilling (both artistic and entrepreneurial).

This chapter investigates how musicians at jazz jam sessions engage in what I term “aggressive emergence.” In so doing, they introduce novelty, unpredictability and creativity in their spontaneous interactions with other musicians. In order to discuss this emergence, a notion of signs in musical communications as indexes, in the Peircean sense, is developed. To produce emergence in the ongoing development of a jam session performance, musicians must produce signs that index new directions that jazz playing can take, such as different rhythmic or harmonic accompaniments, or changes to the volume at which individuals play their instruments.

This paper focuses on the role of myth in group identity maintenance. It begins by looking at the occupational group, but broadens to show how subsociety and the larger society affected the group's identity and actions. Mississippi Delta blues performers’ use of myth serves as the historical example, and this analysis shows how the group reacted to living in a segregated and racist society. Analysis of songs demonstrates how myth can play a role in tying together this subordinated group in society and perpetuate myth. How the blues subculture still employs these myths today is also addressed.

This chapter examines the evolving nature of work patterns and income streams for contemporary Musicians in the United Kingdom. It explores the experiences of independent, portfolio career Musicians working in the Rock/Pop/Indie/Jazz Live Music scene. The Music industry is reported to contribute £5.2bn in Gross Value Added (GVA) to the economy, of which according to UK Music (2019) £2.5bn is generated by ‘Creative Sector’ workers, which includes performing Musicians. Despite these high revenues, UK Music (2019) consistently reports that many Musicians earn below the average working wage of other professions. Challenges to Musicians' work and income streams have been compounded by changes in consumption of Music due to digitization, a lack of systematic support from government for grassroots venues and unequal revenue distribution. In this context, we reveal findings from research interviews with Musicians, which were conducted just before and during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic (mainly in the North of England and Wales). Our research discovers how these Musicians utilize informal community mechanisms to navigate poor working conditions, value ‘dignity’ and ‘meaningfulness’ above remuneration and often default to individualist assumptions regarding career success.

While musicians contribute a great deal to the atmosphere of a city like Austin, Texas, they may be poorly compensated for their work. Their low salaries, personality traits, and lifestyle preferences may also mean that musicians may be reluctant to engage in preventative health strategies. Frequently lacking sufficient health insurance, musicians may have difficulty coping with health challenges such as depression and anxiety, hearing loss, poor nutrition, and alcohol and substance abuse.

This chapter opens with background on the music scene in Austin, Texas and moves to a description of a recent study on how musicians feel their careers impact their health. This is followed by a literature review that summarizes what is known about musicians’ personalities, their lifestyles, the economic factors they face, and their health disparities. In the last half of the chapter, the author summarizes how libraries currently serve musicians and add recommendations for how libraries might expand these services.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between musician’s social network sites (SNS), the tie that fans may develop via these sites, and music acquisition, via legal and illegal means.

A quantitative approach was taken, gathering 352 responses from young adults via an online survey.

Perceptions of interactivity and sincerity on musicians’ SNS are found to lead to stronger ties, enhancing the fan’s feeling of closeness to the musician, the fan’s inclination to spread positive word-of-mouth, and the time a fan spends on the site. Pathways are found between the fan activity, sense of closeness and time spent on the SNS. In terms of acquisition, the tie strength indicator of time spent on the SNS holds a positive relationship with purchase intent. While a sense of closeness holds a negative relationship to illegal downloading activity, the fan’s activity recommending the musician has a positive influence on illegal downloading.

Limitations of this study include a limited amount of information on the musician and extent of fandom, suggesting future research to tease out the effects of SNS on fans with varying levels of existing commitment to musicians.

Stronger ties between fans and musicians may be developed via interactive and sincere SNS. Activities which encourage the fan to give recommendations and spread positive word-of-mouth are especially influential in driving purchase intent.

These results provide theoretical and practical implications in relation to how SNS may influence the online fan-celebrity “tie” and music acquisition – three elements which have not to date been examined.

The relationship between musicians and the music industry has often been depicted as a dichotomy between creativity and commerce with musicians conflicted between their roles as artists and their roles as marketers of sound. Recently, marketing researchers have problematized this dichotomy and suggested musicians perceive these roles as inevitable and indivisible. However, the processes of how musicians market their sound to the industry gatekeepers remain unclear. This study seeks to find the key industry gatekeepers for musicians and how musicians sell their personal sound to them.

Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, ten interviews with professional musicians across different music genres provided insight into the strategies musicians use to market their sound to industry gatekeepers.

In total, three key gatekeepers and the five strategies that musicians use to sell their sound are identified. The gatekeepers are record labels, other musicians and consumers. Musicians sell their sound to these gatekeepers through the externally directed strategies of using social media to build relationships, defining their personal sound through genre and creating a unique sound, and through the internally directed strategies of keeping motivated through sound evolution and counting on luck.

The findings are limited by the small number of musicians interviewed and the heterogeneous representation of music genres.

The study contributes to theoretical understandings of how musicians as cultural producers market their sound in a commercial industry.

This paper aims to investigate the potential impacts that differences between UK and US copyright laws for sound recordings have on musicians. It also highlights the needs for continued standardisation of international copyright laws (particularly those for sound recordings), copyright law education for creators, and a need for musicians to re‐think future artistic and managerial decisions.

In this critical analysis of current academic literature and legislation, significant differences between the domestic copyright laws of the UK and USA have been identified. The impacts of these differences on musicians are discussed and conclusions drawn.

Findings suggest that there are several significant differences between the UK and US copyright laws for sound recordings, which do impact on musicians in both countries. However, determining the degree of impact is dependent on several contributing factors: the nationality of the musician; the level of success of the musician; the creative roles adopted by the musician; and the ambition of the musician.

Research scope was limited to the domestic copyright laws of the UK and USA only; and, specifically, the copyright laws for sound recordings. Findings were generalised for all musicians, regardless of type or genre.

This paper is one of the first to investigate the impact of differences in domestic copyright laws on musicians, and identifies several strategy issues that must be considered by musicians when making future artistic and managerial decisions.