Institutional and Audience Context

Stingray
Stingray is a band formed by 4 teenage boys from Liverpool in 2001, at the time, this consisted of all members of the band being 17 years of age. They started off in 2001 simply as a casual band with little intention to make any impact on the industry, in late November 01 stingray were asked to play at a Christmas show in their school (which three of the four members attended) after this they were approached my a member of the audience who worked for a small agency working to develop unsigned bands with potential. Since then, Stingray have been performing at events ranging from small audiences of around 100-250 to landing spaces on introducing stages at large festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading&Leeds.Stingray also play on a regular basis at a bar in London (Parsons Green) that supports bands of a similar position. From 2001 to the present day Stingray’s star image has altered, this is simply due to maturity over a period of time, when Stingray was first formed they wore alternative and colourful cloths and wrote about different subjects in their lyrics, drugs and women for example, today they write with intention to express a more meaningful message, love and its dangers, government and its corruption and positivity within everyday life. Stingray’s style of music is liked by many people mainly a teenage market and in large numbers. The future looks positive looking at the rapid growth and popularity of the band and their music. Stingray’s genre of music fits with the Alternative, indie and Rock style. Theirinfluences come from bands such as Whitelies, Passion Pit, MGMT and The Boxer Rebellion. Leading competition consists of bands such as Empire Of The Sun and Flashguns who are both bands within the same genre. This genre shapes their star image as the music and lyrics reflect the morals they have, the cloths they ware, and the manner in which they perform. The commercial implications work positively with their choice of music as Stingrays Music fits in with a growing market. Stingray operates to target the jigtar market C-D. The band are signed with a successful independent label named Track Records, they work with similar bands in the same genre and aim to develop them by placing and advertising them in the correct locations such as certain bars, clubs and festivals. Other acts signed to Track Records are such artists as flashguns. this is a good label for Stingray as the correct company is vital for success , this is because of the way they market the artists in a certain way and in certain locations.
The bands demographic is made up of a mix of groups, mainly female but still with a large male audience, ranging within age from 16-25 and backgrounds from both public and state schools in the UK.The typical fan would demonstrate a sophisticated but rebellious life, strong morals and careless behaviour are the main characteristics of the fans, thealternative music that the fan base listen to is of similar genre and would consume other media products such as music magazines (NME for example) and social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace. Stingray creates an image of simple autumn colours and basic visuals. On posters, magazines and CD covers for example photography of city landscape or simply the bands logo, this is an effective visual as it appeals to the audience genre to recognise this style. Stingray have a video for their main selling single which is to be release in 2010, in this video there is abstract shots of the band showing them in a dark surroundings and using blue and white to create a atmosphere, again this appeals to the listeners as it represents thought provoking lyrics. Thisimagery is similar to other videos in this genre and are likely to be exhibited on websites such as ‘Youtube’ and ‘Myspace’ alongside being able to purchase on music sites like ‘limewire’ and ‘itunes’.My video follows this style and imagry of this genre and audience.