The popular artist and the contract: Divergent logics in musical productions

Authors

  • Mariana Mont'Alverne Barreto Lima Universidade Federal do Ceará-Departamento de Ciências Sociais.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4013/csu.2016.52.2.12

Abstract

The means of producing, distributing and consuming recorded music have been quickly changing since the end of the 20th century. Many investigations in different areas of the Human Sciences aimed at explaining and interpreting these means. The present article takes as its empirical object a work contract of “onerous assignment of fixed interpretation” made between a Brazilian musical artist, João do Vale, and a big record label, CBS, in the 1980s. It shows how this juridical document, which is an institutional form of specific social bonds, reveals the strategy of a hegemonic business model of distribution in that period and how the dispositions of the agents involved in that process adjusted perfectly to that order. The text builds on the hypothesis that the conclusion of this sales contract shows the mark and domination of the phonographic field, of its organization and its functioning, considering bot the label and the artist.

Keywords: popular artist, phonographic market, major labels, work contract, artistic careers.

Author Biography

Mariana Mont'Alverne Barreto Lima, Universidade Federal do Ceará-Departamento de Ciências Sociais.

Mestre e Doutora em Sociologia pela Universidade Estadual de Campinas. professora Adjunta II do Departamento de Ciências Sociais e do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia da Universidade Federal do Ceará.

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Published

2016-05-02

Issue

Vol. 52 No. 2 (2016): May/August

Section

Articles

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