Essay - Sinaed O'Connor and Miley Cyrus

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Why is the public row between the music artists Sinaed O’Connor and Miley Cyrus important in understanding the relationship between artistes and between artiste and audience? Explore with reference to the representation of women, media institutions and the role of the media.

Music videos can be a video showing a performance, a type of interpretation of the lyrics, and/or concept that shows a specific message for the audience. One of the main ideas behind a music video is to establish a relationship and connect with the audience. In the increasingly recent climate of music videos inferring a controversial message, there has been an increase of public arguments between artists about music videos and the type of messaged they are portraying to the audience.

An example would be the current ongoing public row between Sinead O’Connor and Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus, a former child star best known for her work on children’s T.V show – Hannah Montana, is releasing a new album alongside some controversial yet very popular music videos. Her recent videos with her new ‘image’ include, ‘We Can’t Stop’ and ‘Wrecking Ball’ and some videos with her being featured in are, ‘Decisions’ and ‘23’. Her first own music video from her album ‘Bangerz’ is ‘We Can’t Stop’-  a staged house party. Though the lyrics refer to some drug use whilst partying, the video is quite tame in comparison to her next one. ‘We Can’t Stop’ has reached over 20,000,000 views on Youtube, due to many reasons. But one main reason could be, as many believe, that most of the audience wants to see the change Miley Cyrus has gone through and what she does in her video regardless whether or not they enjoy her music or not. Her second video - ‘Wrecking Ball’ shows her nude on a construction wrecking ball as well as licking a sledgehammer. Due to the popularity and the success of ‘We Can’t Stop’ more people wanted to also see if this new music video would be as successful and popular as the last, and it was. It now holds the record for the most views in the first 24 hours. But because of the nature of the video there are some other reasons and explanations as to why her video was so popular so fast. Some of those could be because of the male gaze and this video fulfilling it.

The media industry has had a long and shady history with women. From music videos, to films to product advertisement, women had a many roles in order to widen the audience as well as to broaden the pay check of those in the media institution. Women have been many a times been exploited in order to make them popular and therefore making them believe that taking a specific route may allow them to fulfill their dreams in the Media world. Using the example of music video, a female singer who signs up to a record company who also deals with her music videos , may ask her to sing certain songs that are currently in ‘Vogue’. These can be anything about love, drugs, sex and partying etc. But because of these the artiste is able to connect with the audience.

Miley Cyrus is an artiste that many believe has taken this route. Her audience, mostly girls from ages 12 to 19, is seen as an influential group and many of the journalistic media believe that her actions could heavily influence the audience into behaving the same way. Due to many believing it, it caused a public row between Sinead O’Connor and Miley Cyrus. Miley Cyrus first claimed that her video ‘Wrecking Ball’ that includes her naked on a wrecking ball, was inspired by Sinead O’Connor’s video ‘Nothing Compares to U’. In response O’Connor says to Cyrus that she should not allow the music industry to ‘prostitute her’. This meaning letting the music industry exploit her in any way possible, some ways could be sexually, mentally and visually. It shows the truth of the music industry and provides proof to many of the theories that believe the industries exploit female artistes and fooling them to think that it will help them become a more popular and successful artist.

The row between the two artists shows how important the relationship between the artistes and between artiste and audience. Between artistes, it is proven that having positive relationships with each other is beneficial for both artistes and audience, as the can both gain from each other from publicity and connections in the industry to broaden their opportunities. If there isn’t a harmonious relationship each of the artiste may badmouth the other which may reduce their popularity, which then may affect their music sales. This also applies for the relationship between the artiste and the audience. The artiste needs to make the audience feel they been thought for and also appreciated for their dedication of supporting them. Some examples would be Lady Gaga and her fans which she calls ‘Monsters’,  Slipknot and their fans called ‘Maggots’ etc. Their relationship is strong and they regularly thank and say that they are grateful for their fans dedication and support.

Overall relationships in the music industry are important to keep harmonious, and to disrupt them may cause a decrease in popularity or an increase of popularity for the wrong reasons which could lead to knock on negative effects. But the relationships are also affected on how the artiste decides to present themselves and if they exploit themselves in the way mentioned above and whether or not this goes against what’s considered to be acceptable by other artistes and the audience. And this is crucial for an artiste to know and be able to control their own success.