Richard Dyer's Star Theory
Richard Dyer's star theory suggests that pop stars in the media are all artificial, and that the things that they do and how they are represented in music videos and interviews are all controlled and manufactured to allow the consumer to relate to them, and therefore more likely to buy their products because they feel close to the star.
What it is
Case Study
To examine Richard Dyer's star theory, I chose to look at the British band Coldplay, first formed in 1996 under the name Pectoralz, which they changed to Starfish in 1997, and then finally Coldplay in 1998. Since its formation, the band has since released 7 albums, with their latest being A Head Full of Dreams, released in 2015. Over the course of their career, Coldplay has changed their music style, and in some cases how they represents themselves as a band as well.
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The main representations of Coldplay appear through their music videos and live concerts, and mostly it's a representation of the band as a whole rather than individuals within the band. However, the one who would be presented as the "star" of the group is frontman Chris Martin, as he's the one who is often on talk shows and representing the group at events. In terms of the band as a whole, however, the focus is mainly on the music videos made by them and how they've changed between 1998 and 2016.
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The band's earliest videos, made before the massive popularity of YouTube, are all quite similar in that they're low budget (which is understandable for a relatively unheard of band) and are performance videos, as seen with songs such as Shiver and Speed of Sound, which is highly conventional for the Brit rock/ Alt rock genre the band was aiming for at the time. However, in more recent albums, Ghost Stories and A Head Full of Dreams, the band has been moving the focus away from themselves, shifting towards conceptual music videos in videos such as Adventure of a Lifetime and Up&Up. Whilst the new videos may have some performance and the old videos may have some conceptual, the style of the videos has definitely changed between the band's beginning and now.
The music video for Shiver from the band's debut album, Parachutes, and was one of the first music videos they did
The music video for Adventure of a Lifetime from the band's latest album.
The images above show how much the music videos have changed. The music video for Shiver only shows footage of the band performing to show off their skills to the audience, at the cost of not looking extremely visually appealing. In the video for Adventure of a Lifetime, the band don't show their faces at all, instead having CGI gorillas in the video, due to them already being established and therefore changing the style of their music videos to be visually appealing to attract a wider audience who is less worried about knowing the band's skills.
The above videos are both shown on Coldplay's official YouTube channel, which is also used to help them follow one of Richard Dyer's paradoxes, that the artist should be "simultaneously absent and present." In other words, the artists should appear regularly so they're not forgotten, but at the same time they shouldn't oversaturate the market with themselves and bore their audience, which Coldplay does mainly through their YouTube channel. Their uploads on the channel are fairly consistent, usually uploading a couple of videos a week, however they don't all consist of music videos, with some being from fans or messages from the band. In this way, Coldplay don't put themselves forward too much, but make sure that their fans get regular updates on what they're doing so they aren't forgotten.
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The band has also changed in the genre of their songs over the years to appeal to a wider audience. When the band first started, the band's genre on their debut album was alternative rock, using stronger instruments such as guitars and drums. The latest album puts more emphasis on instruments associated with modern pop, such as pianos and computer instruments.
A track from A Rush of Blood to the Head. It uses conventional rock instruments, but changes between two speeds (the quiet, slow, parts and the fast, loud parts) which distances itself from conventional rock music to make it alternative rock.
One of the singles released of the latest album. Unlike Politik, this track has a fairly consistent and similar rhythm, with only a real noticable change at the end of the track (still not largely different to the rest of the song), which is conventional with current pop music.
These two songs share some similarities to each other, such as the piano and heavy beat to keep some of the alt. rock ties that made them famous, however Hymn For The Weekend shares more similarities with other pop music. As Stephen Neale states: "genres are instances of repetition and difference. Difference is absolutely essential to the economy of the genre," a theory which applies to Coldplay as their recent work has acted as the repetition, but staying true to their original work represents the difference.
However, despite the band changing the way they present themselves in music videos and the way their music sounds to cater to a wider audience, the band members haven't changed their ideals very much, namely frontman Chris Martin. In live performances of the band, Chris Martin has had variations of "Make Trade Fair" on his hand and piano (either the full name or the acronym), usually on live performances since at least 2005, if not earlier (according to this article under the sub-heading "a fair trade off"). Furthermore, the band has played at various fundraising events, and give 10% of their profits to charity (source) This consistency of Martin's devotion to this cause shows that the members of the band haven't changed much themselves over the years, however they've had to change the style of music to garner a wider audience.
In conclusion, Coldplay follows Dyer's star theory as they have clearly changed since they started, and have been molded from the alt. rock genre to the pop genre to attract a mass audience in comparison to the niche audience that they'd gathered in their first few albums. On the other hand, the band members themselves haven't changed much, as they've been consistent in their beliefs and actions over the years. Considering this, it's clear that the band has only changed how they sound and present themselves merely to follow a trend of music which is currently popular.